Christmas for Beginners - Carole Matthews Page 0,5
who can often be found sleeping alongside him in his stall. This morning, Fifty is still out for the count, snuggled into the hay, and shows no signs of being ready to face the day. Fifty has the run of the yard. He seems to self-identify as a human or a dog rather than a sheep and we’re happy to go along with that. Gender and, apparently, species are more fluid these days. Fifty is a very handsome sheep with a brown face, doe eyes and large, flappy ears – a sheep made by Aardman. We indulge him, not only because he’s cute, but he was an orphaned lamb with damaged legs who we thought would never make it. He thrived through sheer will and determination, plus daily massages of lavender oil and being fed only the finest of foods. He still limps a bit, but that doesn’t stop him controlling the dogs in the yard – even Betty, to some extent. Occasionally, before I had a soap star sharing my bed, I used to let Fifty sleep with me alongside Big Dog and Little Dog. Now, because Fifty got fed up of being squashed by excess of dogs, he’s happier in Teacup’s quarters, but I do miss him sometimes.
In the next pen along are the other sheep. I don’t even like to count them now as we take on too many waifs and strays. I know it’s more than thirty. I hope it’s less than forty. Our main guy is Anthony the Anti-Social Sheep who has to have his own specially reinforced pen as he is a grumpy, middle-aged man of a sheep and will head-butt anyone he can of any species – humans are a speciality. Many a time, Anthony’s horns have made contact with my rear end, to my detriment. He’ll take any chance to catapult man or beast across the farmyard or field. Even when he’s outside we have to put him in his own paddock for the safety of all concerned. Anthony has to be handled with iron resolve and kid gloves, but I still love him dearly despite his curmudgeonly tendencies. We took away his ‘gentleman’s playthings’ in an attempt to make him less testy – with only limited success. He is more cross with the world than a pampered sheep needs to be.
The rest of the sheep are, more often than not, named by the students. As well as Midnight, Fluffy and Teddy, we’ve got most of Little Mix, One Direction and, from our impressionable young girls, members of Korean pop sensation BTS. We’ve also got a pen full of cuddly bunnies including two Flemish giant rabbits called Ant and Dec who are over a metre long and the size of dogs. Despite their heft, unlike our naughty alpacas, they are no trouble at all. They generally sit there being passive and agreeable in return for lettuce and carrots. The kids, of course, all love them and I have to strictly ration the cuddles otherwise I’d never get anyone to perform any of the other more onerous tasks that need doing as part of their education.
I open the door to the barn and there’s a frenzied dash for the door that we call the morning ‘rush hour’. The ducks, hens and geese that are kept in there overnight scuttle to freedom as if they’ve never seen daylight before. Dick the Cock struts out and stretches as if he’s only just woken up. He treats me to an ear-splitting crow.
‘It’s nine o’clock, Dick,’ I point out. ‘We’re all up before you.’ So much for him heralding in the dawn. Since we’ve moved to our new premises, our cockerel does like a lie-in. Though, once he starts to crow, he never stops.
We have two guard geese, Snowy and Blossom, who patrol the farmyard on a daily basis and nip the legs of anyone who disses them. Sometimes they wear jaunty neckerchiefs, courtesy of Bev, when the mood takes them to let her tie them on. If they’re not in the mood, you can’t get near them.
Our dear hens are a motley crew too: there’s Bouncer, the matriarch of the hen house, one-eyed Mrs Magoo, Peg the one-legged hen and Gloria Gaynor who is a champion of surviving fox attacks. They’re all ex-battery hens so they are extra spoiled now they’re here. We’ve got a few dozen at the moment and I’m not sure that any one of them has a full complement of legs, eyes