The slope of field opposite this window, with the big chestnut tree, that was covered with fallen leaves and pheasants last time I mentioned it, is now covered with baby lambs. They are so agonisingly sweet and run about naughtily in packs doing silly chasing and jumping from just a few days old. They were only put into this field a week ago and I had forgotten how things worked, so when I heard desperate baa-ing as dusk fell I thought that some had got out under the gate and would spend the night shivering and alone... Oh Nooo .. I had actually gone to bed very, very early ready for reading and TV watching of a cosy nature, especially as it was pouring with rain. But I rose again in a selfless manner and dragged out into by then near darkness and soppingness. It was also fairly creepy.

The baa-ing came from several directions so I was forced to walk a long way round the edge of the field, which rises sharply so that sheep kept disappearing over the horizon at a worried trot. I had pretty much circled it, with no sign of any lambs trapped outside, when the milling and trotting suddenly struck a chord. It was the nightfall gathering. For f@ck's sake. All day the lambs gallop about cheerfully alone while their mothers potter around eating and wandering out of sight casually. Then, the second that the light starts to fade, the sheep become totally hysterical and comb the field wildly with hoarse cries until they round up their personal twins and then keep them close until dawn. It is very cute... but I wish I had remembered it an hour or so earlier. Walking home, soaked, I felt part of a long line of shepherds reaching back over the centuries. Or maybe part of the parallel line of rather dim, untrained people who never quite reached the heights of meriting their own crook.
- posted by Iris @ 4/22/2004 09:05:00 PM comment