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| newborn Ouessant lamb |
Sae much fur auld wisdom. Luckily fur us an' uir woolly flock, thes auld Scottish
sayin' is clearly a load ay balloney. Had they instead said, “th' heed gaskit is gonnae blaw oan yer motor”
they’d have been nearer to the mark.
En bref, this is a short tale
of healthy lambs and a poorly Peugeot.
Gabrielle had left our
Brittany smallholding for a trip to England to see her mother and
daughter. It’s a comfortably
familiar trail now, four hours on uncluttered French roads followed by a
pleasant four hours on the ferry from Dieppe to Newhaven. After a few days with her mother,
Gabrielle was making her way along the south coast, so that she could catch a
train up to Christina in London.
She never got to Brighton. She
phoned me from a lay-by just outside Bexhill, “Houston, we’ve had a problem”.
Trying to keep a long
story short, friend Phil came to see us last year, with his VW packed to the
gunnels with wife, three kids and enough stuff for a weeks camping. The turbo blew near Avranches one Friday
evening. I was able to rescue them
in a borrowed minibus. Phil was
the nearest friend to Gabrielle’s breakdown and was soon on his way to help – car
karma!
Gabrielle continued her
now extended travels by train, while her car was undergoing surgery under the
care of David, a mechanical friend of Phil’s. Meanwhile, I was left alone in France with lambs popping out
all over the place.
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| Why did you marry the billionaire Bernie Ecclestone? |
Our four regular mums give
us a lamb each, which is normal for the rustic Ouessants. They were joined this year by a Suffolk
cross ewe who we bought last summer.
The smaller Ouessant ram has clearly managed to rise to the challenge (Think Bernie Eccleston
with now ex-wife Slavica)
and our white lady with her black suitor has given us … (pause for effect) …
one white lamb and one black.
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| Suffolk cross, crossed with Ouessant ram |
The way we’d grouped our
flock last summer meant that the ram had been in with the Suffolk ewe long
before we introduced him to the Ouessants, so it was no surprise when she
produced first, on 20th February, fortunately just after our really
cold spell. We had to wait until
10th March and then back-to-back on 20th and 21st. All boys so far, with one ewe still to
lamb.
Last night, just before
turning in, I had a feeling in my water and went out to have one last look at
the flock. From a distance, the
torch just picks out pairs of eyes and mum’s tend to shield their lambs, so it
was a confusing few minutes, especially as I was counting one more lamb than I was
looking for. We moved mum and our
one and only girl to the sheep shelter for the night.
So much for that auld Scottish sayin' as this leap year
has turned out to be a very good lamb year. However, David, a Scot, did tell Gabrielle that “th' heed gaskit has bloon oan yer motor,”
and then proceeded to dismantle the engine and repair it. The Peugeot is dead … long live the
Peugeot: thank you David and Phil!
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| Ouessant ewe with young lamb |
