I’d have written this last night, but was still suffering from the humiliation of knowing that much of the work I have done over the last year to make people believe that I am a rufty tufty farmer was all but destroyed last night in the space of 5 minutes.
I’d popped out into the front garden to shut the chicks away last night and on my way to the sehd, I found myself greeting Freckles. The exact details of what happened are a little hazy; a throwback to some sort of primitive self-defence reflex I expect. However I do recall assuming the pose of Cilla Black walking down the steps on Blind Date with her arms held wide as ‘our Graham’ announces her arrival.
The difference between myself and Cilla was the lack of an announcer and the fact that I was walking forward to greet a grey-faced ewe rather than an excited studio audience. However I walked on with a loud patter that I felt would have happily graced the lips of our Cilla, effusing my joy at seeing my little girl Freckles and giving her a little kiss on the forehead – she’s still my favourite, but don’t let Tan Tan know.
So as I stood straight I glanced down the field just in time to witness a bemused looking Debbie (the farmer who keeps sheep on our land) waving at me, and possibly, but probably not, Freckles. Individually greeting an indivudal sheep is probably not the actions of your standard sheep farmer. However its quite likely that the kissing thing might be practised on some more remote hill farms, though probably not in Halton Lea Gate in general.
Having now shut the chicks in for the night, I came back into the house and recounted what had happened to Kate, knowing full well that she would offer sympathy and understanding of the crushing and humiliating experience that I had just suffered.
I wasn’t wrong and Kate expressed her empathy for me by laughing so hysterically I feared she might die.
After 5 minutes of this hysterical laughing I actually started to hope that she would. We’d decided to move the 3 ducks that had survived the attack back into the front with the other so I decided to take my leave and go out the back and get them in the hope that in my absence Kate might be able to regain her composure.
As I walked down the yard, the ducks heard me and started to quack their joy. In return I started to sing a greeting to them, and with end of the first verse and as I passed the rabbits stable I started to sing a greeting to them also.
I only managed the first line as I suddenly realised that Debbie was stood on the other side of the fence.
Bugger!
We had a conversation, probably something about sheep, but it’s a bit vague now. Shock probably. Not sure how I’m going to go about regaining respect as a farmer now. Probably going to have to stop letting the sheep sleep upstairs for a while.
Today’s been a bit better. No hugely embarrasing moments anyway.
Actually it’s been a very good day as I’ve laid a laminate floor in the lounge. Got one small corner to finish, but that’ll only take an hour tomorrow. It looks good but probably isn’t the most practical flooring for those who have sheep and chickens in the house.
The lounge looks dramatically different; the carpet had some dubious and ambiguous stains on it and many that we knew to be the result of sheep peeing and pooing.
We’ve also cracked on with the dining and owl rooms, finishing the stripping of walls and painting. We’ve just done it white, but it is very effective and makes two rooms that we’ve little used much more useable.
Now it’s like being sat in Ikea, largely due to the fact that the flooring was Ikea’s best – well cheapest actually. Still, gave Kate her second night out of the week following a delightful evening at Asda Carlisle; she does enjoy shopping for bargains.
As if that wasn’t enough, we had our first takeaway curry in 2 years (excepting curries from Munch). We treated ourselves on Friday and tried the curry house in Haltwhistle, which wasn’t bad and we topped the night off with a dvd of Monsters Inc. We got half way through the film in about 20 minutes and realised that the disk needed cleaning. By the time we got back to the same point without randomly skipping scenes, Kate decided to go to bed. I bravely continued to watch, having not been particularly scared by the animated action. I was also lucky to be able to watch the film again on Saturday when Kate built up the courage to watch.
Well it’s almost time for bed, and I’m going to have to let Basil into the lounge; I hope he’s gentle on the new floor. He’s been seeming stiff in the back legs in the morning, so we’ve been letting him sleep on the sofa.
We’ve also been letting some of the smaller pups upstairs at night as they’ve been better behaved at night recently. In fact Tinks and Henry have been so well behaved recently that I’ve found myself shaking them to make sure they’ve not been smothered.
Strangely they don’t look so excited when they get invited up now.