Baaa humbug!

What a racket!  Moving ewes and lambs between the sheds and fields, you can hear us coming along the lanes long before we hove into view.  Entertainment for the stray tourist who watches the woolly procession amble forth, rubbing clean the side of the car as it passes by.  An annoyance to anyone trying to get somewhere quickly, as is evidenced by several faces that put me in mind of a bulldog licking a nettle – well, if you live in the country, expect country life.

A sheep's ass view of the proceedings.

Some of the ewes are completely unperturbed by the drama unfolding around them, and happily nibble on the passing vegetation with that strange mindless blissfulness that sheep manage to cultivate, but some of their sorority bellow out their angst at losing their lambs (who are a merely a few feet back in the throng) – great deep maaas that, if I were made of weaker stuff, would tug at the heartstrings.  And yet others appear to be baa-ing because it is expected of them, rather than paying any real attention to what they are doing – indiscriminate belly-aching.  Daft buggers.

The lambs are much more entertaining...  "Where is mum?  Shall I run forwards or backwards?  Oh, look, a nice bit of willow-herb, wait, where's my brother?  Yikes, a dog!  Maybe I can get away by climbing over the back of these slow-pokes.  That's not my mum!  Oh, look, a nice bit of willow-herb."  And so we progress up the hill.  Some lambs bleating continually, others stopping and putting every last bit of effort into a long baaaaaaaaaaaa, then piddling and rushing on. 

Suddenly, as if co-ordinated by some ovine conductor in the ether, everyone shuts up at the same time – a perfect second of silence – before cacophony returns.  I look at a particularly tiny lamb wandering along beside me, calm and chewing.  She looks back and says 'Bah!' and nothing more.  The lamb teenage equivalent of 'whatever'.  Indeed.