There’s sex
happening here at Chauffour and there shouldn’t be.
It appears
that overnight, one of our ewes has morphed into a Thompson’s Gazelle as she
effortlessly hurdles 6 foot high fences in a quest to satisfy her carnal
desires.
Yes, it’s
that time of year again when the boys meet the girls.
Meanwhile, in
a tiny field at the other end of the holding, 3 rams nonchalantly chew at their
cuds, watching her brazen antics through the only flimsy barrier that now separates
them and getting ideas above their station. Fuelled with rising testosterone,
they occasionally test their manhood by head-butting each other in an ovine jousting
contest that would shock even the most hardened of Olympians. Blood flows – the
one with the most dents is surely the winner.
Normally I
would let them have their way, but this year I am trying to postpone next years
lambing until February so that Wendy and I can spend a little time in Scotland for
the winter. However, something tells me it’s a battle I am destined to lose.
Nature at full strength has undeniable power and I feel like whats-his-name
with a finger in the dyke – so to speak.
It’s like an
episode of Big Brother!
Not that I
have ever watched BB.
Although, for
a house that rarely turns on a TV from April til October, this summer has seen
ours on constantly as we followed every discipline of the Olympics. I will
admit I was pleasantly surprised at London’s
handling of the event and especially the opening ceremony. Wow, that really was
something – apart from them wheeling out Sir Paul again. What amazed me was the
opening part of the show, depicting medieval rural Britain and how in the blink of an
eye, the whole thing transposed into the industrial revolution. That in itself
was stunning but what I want to know is: What
did they do with the sheep?
One minute there
were 20 of them grazing happily on patch of ground tended by 2 shepherds, the
next they were gone!
I never saw
them leave – did you?
Because it
was pitch dark, that’s why.
Many times I
have tried moving sheep in the dark, and it isn’t easy.
Couple that
with music so loud it would make your ears bleed and surely the things would
have gone ballistic and run in a hundred directions when the lights went out –
especially as we definitely saw people remove all the hurdles?
It would take
more than a few actors and a couple of tame sheepdogs to hold that lot together,
surely. Mystifying – to say the least. Whoever had sheep under that sort of control
is invited here anytime…!
But the games
were brilliant, weren’t they, especially winning all those medals? And beating
the Aussies. They don’t like it up em – those Aussies.
The whole
thing is so emotional, though. What is it about sport than can make grown men
like John Inverdale and Sir Steve Redgrave – and me – cry like nursery children
when we win or lose a gold by the skin of our teeth?
Well, I have
a theory…..it all comes down to the National Anthem. Somewhere inside each and
every Brit is a trigger which is programmed to be set off every time we hear those
opening bars - just like Pavlov and his dog which would salivate every time it
heard the dinner-bell.
Gold medal =
National Anthem = blub like a 3 year old.
Clever bloke,
that Pavlov, I’m telling you – doing all that research AND inventing the meringue
cake…
As far as the
Olympics go, I love the first week, watching all those sports we didn’t know we
were any good at, like clay-trap shooting, my bother’s favoured sport, in which
we won a gold. Also, there was that pretty judo fighter who was quite agile –
I’m not sure many men would have lasted 5 minutes on the mat with her….?
Cycling, sailing, kayaking, archery and gymnastics all take extreme levels of
skill and balance in so many muscles which is what makes them so interesting.
But by the
second week, I find it all a bit of an anti-climax. I know runners need to
train hard, just like everyone else, but isn’t running a bit boring in
comparison to pitching your strengths and skills against the elements?
Especially those marathons – that go on for hours and hours – hogging the BBC
channel. At least in the London
marathon we can get to giggle at idiots in panda suits swooning from
heat-exhaustion after 2 miles or Paula Radcliff stopping in for a pee behind
the Queen’s gatepost. At one time we even had chance to smile every time
Brendan Foster managed to get the name Haile-Gabrie-Selassie
into every sentence as though he practiced it in front of a mirror every
morning. But this year, it all seemed rather mundane on the track and field
compared to the ‘lesser’ sports.
Not that I am
capable of doing any of them. A bit
of fencing, with netting and barbed-wire, that’s about it for me.
And what
about those 7 African athletes who just used the Games as an excuse to get into
the country? Are things really that bad in Cameroon
that they wanted to come to UK
– when many of us are leaving? I bet they soon turn themselves in when they have
to queue for 12 hours for a bus – in the pouring rain – and then pay a hundred
quid for a cup of tea. Very shortly they’ll be pining for the coastal resort of
Kribi back home where, according to travel guides, the average annual temperature
is 30 degrees, it has wonderful and deserted palm-fringed beaches and you can
dine on fresh seafood in picturesque restaurants for a few cents. Sounds a
helluva lot nice than London
to me! Still, the grass is always greener – and all that.
Back to the
subject of sheep, we lost a strong lamb this morning – one of the ones we had
reared on a bottle which made it even more distressing. While checking the
fences, I noted a lot of bright red berries, growing in clusters 6 inches high
under the hedge.
Lords and Ladies, as they are known;
proper name Anum Maculatum. Other
names include Devils and Angels,
Cows and Bulls, Cuckoo-Pint, Adam and Eve, Bobbins,
Naked Boys, Starch-Root and Wake Robin. I’m not sure who thinks up
all these colourful names but whatever you like to refer to them as, they are
evidently deadly poisonous. Tiddling lambs will eat anything, but that was
maybe a munch too far, poor chap.
I knew we
should have got the thing on the bbq last week – damn-it Janet.
I would like
to close this piece with an immortal track by the band Pink Floyd – because
despite a few rumours, the Olympics didn’t!
When I was
growing up listening to monumental albums like ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ and
clambering for tickets to their concerts, my parents were very busy telling me
that all this long-haired modern clap-trap would never stand the test of time.
Classical and Opera would still be around in centuries time where Roger Waters
and Co would be long-forgotten by the end of the seventies.
Wrong.
Who’s music
was it that ended the opening ceremony at 2012 – yes, them with a number called
ECLIPSE.
And I am a
little annoyed that they didn’t close the whole event as promised, perhaps with
a few lines from the track entitled TIME, which is proffers sound advice to lethargic
teenagers everywhere:
…and
then one day you find,
10
years have got behind you,
No
one told you when to run….
you
missed the starting gun…
Topical - if
not poetic.
