A herd, or more accurately a fold, of Highland cattle, gently grazing under a steely sky.

They belong to daughter and father Harriet and Gary Palmer, who have been breeding and showing them as a hobby - albeit a big hobby - since 2009. The pair juggle the farm with their day jobs - Harriet is a nanny and Gary runs a fencing contracting business.

During the late spring and summer they will take the cattle to more than a dozen agricultural shows around the country, including the Royal Norfolk Show.

Harriet Palmer and her dad, Gary, with Diana Lara II at Hall Farm in Pudding Norton. Photo: Denise Bradley But it's not just show-goers that this hardy breed with their distinctive shaggy coats and horns bring joy to.

Blackwater Highlanders also welcomes visitors to the farm to meet them - from volunteers for whom being outdoors working with animals boosts their wellbeing to youngsters with special educational needs or outside mainstream education to learn about life in the countryside.

They currently have around 40 Highlands. And as Harriet, a fifth generation farmer, explains, they acquired their first almost by chance.

'Dad's family were arable and dairy farmers at Ryburgh, a mile as the crow flies from here, but at the end of the 90s, milk prices dropped so they sold up all the dairy cows,' she says.

One of the Highland cattle at Hall Farm in Pudding Norton.Photo: Denise Bradley Harriet's grandfather moved into raising Hereford beef - and is still farming and supplying a major supermarket chain at the age of 83. And her dad went into sheep farming.

'We had some lambs being collected from the farm in Ryburgh and on the front of our haulier's lorry were five black Highland cows. Dad asked where on earth they had come from as it's not something you'd usually see down here and the driver said that they'd come from Stalham Marshes.

'The driver wasn't sure what he was going to do with them as you can't put them in a yard to fatten because their horns will injure other cows and they take 30 months to grow.

'Dad said they he would buy........

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