Then when we were part way up the path to the waterfall, I saw a movement in the ditch beside the path. There was a big sheep (not sure if a ewe or a ram but it had big curly horns) slumped in the ditch – it was moving so it wasn’t dead, but it obviously couldn’t run away because they are very skitty around humans. I went down into the ditch to see if there was anything I could do to help and discovered that its back leg was wedged into a hole. Getting ourselves covered in mud, R and I managed to dig the leg out and we were hoping that it would run away at this point. It didn’t, as it was obviously so exhausted with struggling that it had no energy to get out of the ditch. Becoming even more mud covered, I got into the ditch with it and managed to turn it on its front. It looked a bit better at this stage – but nothing R and I could do could induce it to try to jump, and (although we tried) it was just too heavy to bodily lift out. So we had to leave the poor thing and call the farmer, who promised to send men to get it out.

So this morning it had gone – either it had recovered sufficiently to jump out itself once it had been left alone for a while (I’ve noticed animals often do this), or the farmer got it out. I was pretty relieved because I would have been upset to see its body lying there.

So that was our good deed for the day – I had to have a shower and wash all my walking clothes before we went out as both me and them were soaked in freezing mud.

So I will put up a nice photo from Christmases past every day in December.

Today is from two years ago when the snow drove some woolly visitors into our garden. The wall they are standing on is all that remains of the original Donich Lodge which burned down in 1970s.

The days for going through the cow field are numbered for this year though – as it is the worst place for flies, and I notice they are already gathering. This is in the absence of the cows and Billy the Bull, however, as this year the farmer is keeping them in the field by the road.

The sheep have just been brought into the field across the road for lambing time – and this is when we normally have a few visitors in the garden. It would be nice if they brought some lambs with them if they do come.

The reason for us both liking this is that when I was a child we had a pet sheep. She actually belonged to the farm next door, but had been brought up on a bottle, was really tame, and thought she was still a lamb. She was blind in one eye and deaf in one ear so she would have to turn her head at an odd angle to look at you.

Anyway, sometimes we would find her in our garden munching the grass, and sometimes we would feed her over the wall. We called her Crackers because that was her favourite food.

It all ended in tears as nearly everything in this life does. One day she was gone from the field next to us and reappeared in a field down the road with loads of other sheep. Stupidly, we didn’t see the writing on the wall and the next day the farmer who was a ‘friend’ of my parents said ‘We got rid of that old nuisance of a sheep for you’. If we had had any sense we could just have bought Crackers from him and we would have had a friendly lawnmower for years to come.

I’ll always remember Crackers bouncing along with the new lambs because she thought she was still a lamb herself.

So I like sheep even though I think the ‘Lochgoilhead two’ have spoiled some of my bulbs.

We also saw a sheep in our garden again – this is after paying a fortune for custom designed gates and then forgetting to close them.

We have a fragment of wall that belonged to the former house which burned down (we think immediately post-war), and one of our new lodgers likes eating something it is finding on it.

Anyway – they are keeping the lawn under control and doing their bit towards fertilizing it as well.

Our other visitor is a large sheep which showed up for the first time yesterday afternoon at the bottom of the front garden. Schrodi saw it and his tail puffed up like a brush; for a moment we thought he was going to go for it even though it is ten times his size. He thought better of it and this morning it was gone, however this afternoon it was back – and today it has worked its way round the back and is greatly enjoying the grass there. I have always liked sheep (I used to have a pet one called Crackers as a child) and it would certainly keep the lawn cropped, however I think it would be death to the concept of growing any vegetables – quite apart from the fact that it must belong to someone who may be missing it….