I know I’ve been crap again at this – what with poor Archie, JD and then headlong into mid-module exams, I’ve been run ragged recently. I now have my results in and am delighted with 95% in Stats, 93% in Biology and 88% in Chemistry. Yee haa.

So, I can get my head up out of my books for a bit and look around me. I didn’t have far to look today to find a photo – this was shot just after 7am this morning, on my way out of the door to University. I opened the front door and standing on the path across our front lawn was this ewe. That’s not supposed to happen – we have a cattle grid on the road and the moors are fenced to prevent livestock from straying into places they shouldn’t be. This poor girl was, then, in a place where she shouldn’t have been (not that we mind in the slightest).

She’s “trained” with regard to traffic because she’s used to being on the moor where the roads are unfenced so sheep and cars mingle mostly without mishap, however of course car drivers are not “programmed” to expect sheep outside of the cattle grid system.

Sadly I can report with hindsight that she’s been away from her friends for some time now – several attempts have been made to herd her back through the gate by the cattle grid but all to no avail. Of course sheep are sociable animals and need the company of their pals but she’s still out and about on her own. Last night (I write this on 10th), as I returned from University, she was just settling down for a nap on our next-door-neighbour’s front lawn – an ill-thought-out plan given our neighbour’s self-confessed obsession about tidiness and cleanliness!

Anyway, the poor soul is still, five days later, without her buddies and ambling aimlessly around in the road and gardens of our village.

I think we’re going to have to have a more concerted effort to get her back to her pals but it needs a few people to engineer her course so she has no escape routes that lead back onto the road. We’re going to have to get a little posse of people together to get this right.