Here's Looking at Ewe

What has my life become? I spent most of today in the company of sheep. I'm not talking in the metaphorical sense here, I'm talking about real, woolly, bleating sheep. I'm shocked and appalled that I'm about to write an entire blog entry about sheep, but I have nothing else in my life these days. Those of you who know me well will know that this sort of thing really isn't my scene, but there aren't any other scenes here, so it's like it or lump it, I'm afraid. Actually, I don't know why I'm defending myself, it's left me feeling rather wholesome. And these things aren't even uncool in Norway.

It's all terribly quaint, the world of sheep, apart from the unfeasible amounts of urine these things seem to produce, usually when one is standing right behind them. I've ruined my running shoes.

At this time of year, you see, the sheep are moved from the field to the common grazing land, which is essentially a mountain. I was enlisted to help in this process (a thinly veiled attempt at shirking by saying that I had some important sections of Gloria Hunniford's autobiography to re-read sadly did not wash).

The ram (Torle, or Jarle as he is called) did not go up the mountain as if he were to encounter another ram he would kill it or be killed himself. Most barbaric. He has been left in the field with one ewe who was ill earlier in the year and thus can't be left in high mountain climes, poor lamb (sorry). Being that she is now the only female left in the field with Torle (or Jarle) she is presumably in for a right old porking, so I worry about the wisdom of leaving her behind, but I'm told there won't be any ramifications (sorry).

Getting sheep up a mountain is no joke, even if you like sheep. One drives half way up the mountain and then herds the sheep the rest of the way to the common grazing land. I was told this area was not right at the top. This is what we call a half-truth. It was about thirty feet from the top, and I made my second encounter with the tree line in as many weeks. So I and the adoptive Norwegian family scrambled up the mountain trying to get the sheep to climb it rather than wander off7stop and eat/stop and pee/stop and poo, mainly by shouting/cooing/clapping at them and/or enticing them in the right direction with (a) slices of stale bread (b) wild, flailing arm gestures and (c) empty threats about Lancashire hotpot and mint sauce. Thankfully they were particularly unfit sheep, as one has to be able to run and overtake them at a moment's notice and if they'd been any quicker the only way I would've left that mountain would have been in a rescue helicopter.

The problem, of course, with enticing sheep, is that once one has enticed them into the common grazing land (which is not fenced in any way) one then has to leave the sheep there. As irony would have it, they are more than happy to gad and skip in all directions when you're trying to herd them, but when you're to leave them somewhere then they try to stalk you the whole way back down. The only solution, then, is to try to give them the slip. This entails everyone standing in a group looking nonchalant and slowly and discreetly peeling off one by one in different directions so that the sheep don't notice you going - not unlike a sketch from a very dull agricultural Carry On spin-off. Then, one scrambles back down the mountain post-haste so that one's cunning escape isn't discovered by any of the wily flock. I did so, so scared of tripping over forwards that I fell over backwards twice, grazing my buttocks. My balance has always been a bit woolly (sorry).

Still, the view was nice. I'm told we've got to pop up there twice a week to check on them, so will provide photographs. I may even take some snaps of the flock, if they're not camera shy - I'm told at times they can be rather sheepish.