Bucolicky pains

I had another embarrassing moment with a sheep yesterday.

It was one of those lovely Indian Summer days, with russet and red autumn tints in all directions, the early morning mists had burnt off, the sun was warm and there was an orchard full of rosy apples to be picked. I took out my large basket and my long ladder, climbed into the tallest apple-tree, and settled into a comfortable fork, having a gentle muse about the meaning of life, where's it all leading to, will String Theory explain everything in the Universe, does it matter that David Cameron is beginning to go bald, is it fair to cut child benefits, is Nigella really as insatiable as she looks, and so on...... Every now and again, I plucked an apple and added it to my apron pouch. The birds were singing, there was no pressure, this was the most perfect of worlds. If this was bucolic, I liked it. I did briefly wonder about the derivation of the word bucolic, as is my wont (to save you looking it up, I can tell you it relates to things pastoral, and comes from the Greek boukolikos, a herdsman, bous being the Greek for an ox). Nothing to do with colic from eating too many green apples.

This bit of trivia seemed very appropriate,since by this time I was aware that a few sheep were clustering around the tree, pushing each other aside to get at the fallen apples which I'd accidentally dislodged. As a trainee shepherd I also knew that if sheep eat too many apples it discombobulates their digestive system, with predictable results for the cleanliness of my orchard. So I shouted at them and threw a couple of apples at them to scare them away. Big mistake! It caused a frenzy of pushing and shoving and my ladder was sent flying.

So there I was, up a creek without a paddle, nobody within hailing distance and no sheep smart enough to put the ladder back in place for me to climb down.

There's always a solution to dilemmas if you're clever enough. My problem was that I wasn't clever enough. I sat and thought, and mused a bit, and thought a bit more, and then remembered that my wife had gone to Bristol for the whole day and wouldn't be back for lunch. When she did get back at 7 p.m., she wouldn't expect me to be sitting up a tree in the gloaming, she'd just start ringing round the neighbours, then various casualty departments and then the police.

There was a time, about 40 years ago, when I'd just have climbed down to the lowest branch, hung from it by my arms and dropped cat-like to my feet, Britain's answer to Johnny Weissmuller (or Johnny Depp in today's parlance).

I have now discovered that cat-like dropping to my feet is not one of my retained talents. I can still do 'sack of potatoes and multiple bruises' though.

Ouch! Bloody sheep!

Stepping in it.

I stepped right in it a few days ago.

You'll recall that I had heroically rescued a sheep in our paddock from certain death by tipping it back on its feet.

While I was in the paddock I'd noticed that some of the lambs had scabby bits on their foreheads. When I rang my friend the shepherd to tell him of my good deed I asked him about the scabby bits and he said it was orf. Now he is Somerset born and bred, so he doesn't say orf as they do in Mayfair, e.g. "Ay'm fratefully afraid the prawns hev gorn orf". When he said it was orf, he meant it was a viral disease of sheep which can affect humans.

Now as a doctor I had occasionally seen patients with orf. In lambs it causes small blisters and ulcers around the mouth, which interferes with their suckling, and when farmers or their wives bottle-feed these ailing lambs, they sometimes get blistered lesions on their fingers from contact with the lamb's muzzle. I'd never seen it cause scabby lesions on the forehead though, in either sheep or humans.

So I thought I might learn something from the shepherd, and when I next saw him in the paddock I went to join him. There were two men with him whom I'd never seen before, knowledgable-looking countrymen in tweeds and flat caps, obviously vets. I was even more likely to learn something.

I approached them with a cheery smile, and said "Hello Jim, I hope you don't mind but I'd like to listen in with the consultation, because I've been a bit worried about that sheep that nearly died yesterday and then there's one with a very bad limp and there's all this scabby stuff which you said was orf, but I'm not sure, so I'd be interested to hear what the vets say."

There was a long pause, accompanied by a long hard stare. "Well actually John, they're not vets, these gentlemen are judges from the Melplash Agricultural Show and they've come to judge the quality of my herd".

Oops!

Well, they would have noticed, wouldn't they? They are judges after all. Nothing that a large bunch of home-grown sweet peas and a bag of plums won't put right.

I hope.