Sorry to disappoint any Scottish football fans who may chance across this blog, but I'm afraid it has nothing whatever to do with the equal best side in Glasgow! It will instead be an account of a journey, by me and my camper van, down the length of the Celtic coastline of Europe, from Cape Wrath in Scotland to Cape St. Vincent in Portugal. It will take in lanfdscape and seascape, food, pubs, culture, the odd golf course and the people whom I meet along the way, and if it has any serious purpose to it, it is to explore the links between the peoples of Europe's Western seaboard.

I do not intend to get involved in the debate over whether the Celts were a defined race, originating in central Europe and dominating the continent before first the Romans and then the Anglo Saxons pushed them to its outermost fringe, or whether they were a much broader assortment of iron age tribes, given a historical identity by medieval (and later) romanticists. Suffice it to say that whoever the people were who dominated Europe before the Romans, they were undoubtedly gradually pushed westwards. To a large extent the evidence will speak for itself. If there are clear cultural similarities between, say, Galicia and Galway, then the case that these similarities stem from a shared cultural ancestry becomes that much stronger.

As for myself, I have just retired after 36 crisis-torn years with the NFU. I decided to make the journey because my mother's family is pure Celt - Welsh as it happens - and I have always felt a strong affinity with the wild and rugged coastlines of places like Cornwall and Britanny. But I have never been to the West coast of Scotland, or Galicia, or indeed to the vast majority of the places I will be visiting over the next four or five months. I am also a camper van virgin.

Actually, it's a bit more than a camper van. More of a motor home, if I'm being honest. It's called Carmen; partly because the last three letters on the registration are BZT and partly because the NFU's Chief Economist, Carmen Suarez, playe a big part in encouraging me to embark on this venture, and she's a Celt, from Asturias.

I shall miss the pastoral lushness of the Somerset Levels where I live. And I shall miss my wife Claire. But after 36 years of hard graft, I decided it was time for an adventure; which, for better or for worse, I'm sure this will be.

I'm leaving in the morning, stopping overnight near Moffat, and God willing should be arriving at Durness on Friday evening. I'll catch you then.