Arrivage des Sheeps

Sheepy

Having watching with interest as le Comte and his strimmer battled through the undergrowth our neighbour Robert Mouton decided to stop by and offer some advice.
‘What you need,’ he said picking the remains of his teeth with a piece of stick, ‘are sheep.’
‘Sheep?’ we said, knowing as we did, absolutely nothing about anything rural. ‘Those woolly things you find on fells?’
‘To clear the grounds,’ Robert explained. We must have looked unconvinced because he pressed on. ‘Tell, you what, I’ll let you have some.’
This was hardsell a la Coldspot and le Comte and I felt it was all moving a little too fast. Yet, we didn’t want to be rude. The man was wearing the regulation paysan uniform: blue overall stretched round fat belly. He was bound to know much more about ‘things farming’ than we did. Still, we hesitated.
‘Interesting price,’ continued M Mouton, persuasively.
Le Comte and I looked each other. What could possibly be an interesting price for a sheep? Perhaps one of us inadvertently nodded because the next thing we knew we had agreed to take le Rangerover round the next day to collect them.
‘We’ll buy some electric fence,’ said le Comte, decisively.
Robert shook his head. ‘These ‘ere sheep don’t understand new-fangled stuff like that. You need ‘Cloture mouton.’

‘Rubbish,’ scoffed the lady in the farm shop. ‘Everyone uses electric fence for sheep, nowadays. Two strands mind.’
We nodded, intentionally this time, and spent the rest of the morning erecting our splendid two strand fence.
The follwoing morning we collected the sheep, narrowly avoiding purchasing rabbits to go with them. One sheep came complete with lamb; the others, apparently, were expecting. No sooner were they trussed up and thrown in the back of the le Range than M Mouton held out his hand. Like most of the commerce in le Midi, this was strictly a cash transaction.
‘Maybe you’ll get a male,’ he said, nodding encouragingly at the pregnant ewes as we counted out the surprisingly large number of notes. ‘Then you’ll have lots more sheep.’ He slammed the tailgate shut. ‘Keep ‘em in a for a couple of days until they get used to the place,’ he advised.
‘More sheep? Won’t they get a bit inbred?’ I worried as we trundled back to the Chateau.
‘They’re sheep, hun,’ said le Comte brushing my concerns aside. He was adapting with disconcerting speed. I made a mental note to buy him a blue overall next time I was at the farm shop.

We had decided that the new sheep could share a dormitory with Daisy the donkey and Luna the fat pony. Farm animals lived together didn’t they? They were contented creatures who willingly shared their stable with their four-legged friends. You only had to think of the nativity scene to know that.
At first, things went well, we unloaded the sheep, untied them and watched happily as they started munching on the hay we had provided.
Le Comte: ‘He said keep them shut in for a day or two, didn’t he?’
La Chatelaine: ‘Seems a shame with all that grass out there.’
Le Comte: ‘It does. And we’ve got the fence on anyway, so they can’t get out of the field.’
La Chate: ‘Let’s open the door then.’
We opened the door and the sheep barely glanced up.
‘They don’t care look. They’re quite happy. We’ll leave it shall we and they can go out if they like.’
Le Comte nodded. We backed out slowly. The sheep ignored us.
We had gone about 10 metres when the donkey came trotting over. Luna, had already taken a look and decided she had seen sheep before and could give these a miss. Daisy was more enthusiastic, however. She popped her head inside the barn and her ears pricked up.
‘Good grief,’ I heard her say. ‘What have we here?’ She moved in a little further until she practically blocked the exit. The sheep began to look mildly alarmed as this enormous, unknown creature stared down at them.
Then Daisy decided to say hello.
‘Eeeeey-oorree’, she bellowed in a jolly tone. ‘Eeee-yyyorrrre!’
And the sheep, as one, leapt up in pure terror and fled, squeezing past her, dashing underneath her, and generally exiting the barn as if shot from a cannon.
Le Comte: ‘Oh no!’
La Chate, brightly: ‘S’okay. There’s the fence.’
'What fence?' said the sheep. Some jumped over it, some ploughed through it, but none of them seemed the slightest bit bothered as the electricity pinged on their six inch thick wool coats.
‘Bugger,’ said le Comte, scratching his head and I postponed the blue overall for the moment.
‘Better get them back, I suppose.’
But the sheep wanted to go home, far away from this land of the great, grey beast. And so they kept running in no particular direction.
The Princes, who had been standing around idly with their hands in their pockets waiting for something interesting to happen, were called into action.
‘Head them off,’ yelled le Comte. The Princes ran, waving their arms. The sheep ran faster. ‘Not like that, like this,’ yelled le Comte, standing in the path of an oncoming sheep and impersonating a windmill. The sheep zoomed past. The Princesses arrived and giggled, until le Comte shouted at them too: ‘Don’t just stand there...’
‘Is it lunchtime?’ asked the Princesses hopefully.
‘NO- IT- ISN’T,’ said le Comte.
The princesses took up positions at a safe distance and flapped their arms vaguely.
‘Arrgh’ bellowed le Comte, as the sheep charged past heading for the river. We all turned and followed in hot pursuit.
Le Comte cornered one against the fence. ‘Got yer,’ he shouted and flung himself at the animal in a tackle the All Blacks would have been proud of. He and the sheep wrestled for some moments.
‘String! Wheelbarrow,’ le Comte gasped. The Princes rushed to fetch these then sat one on each end of the unfortunate animal as le Comte tied sheep knots. At last the the creature was hauled into the wheelbarrow where it pretended it was dead.
‘Stick it in the barn,’ le Comte instructed. The Princes obeyed, wheeling it up the field with its head lolling alarmingly.
This process continued for the remaining two sheep and one lamb : chase, corner, rugby tackle, tie up, transport to barn in wheelbarrow. We pursued them up the mountain, along the riverbank, across the fields until only one sheep was left at large. In its bid to escape, this stupid animal had fought its way deep into some undergrowth and collapsed in a heap of tangled briars.
‘Bugger’, said le Comte, wearily.
Quite.
‘Shall we get the lunch on?’ suggested the Princesses, helpfully, ‘while you get it?’
‘No, you shall not!’ said le Comte. ‘Come and give us a hand.’
The Princesses stood staring miserably at the forlorn sheep, some tens of metres away across a small chasm, while the Princes began to hack half-heartedly at the brambles.
Le Comte, half-dazed with exhaustion, brushed them aside, slashed at the brambles with his bare hands and leapt across the chasm.
The sheep didn’t so much as glance up.
Le Comte picked it up by its front legs, swung it three times round his head and finally pulled it down onto his shoulders.
The sheep seemed unimpressed.
Le Comte leapt back across the chasm and deposited his burden in the wheelbarrow.
The sheep began to bleed slightly at the mouth.
‘Stupid animal,’ declared le Comte. We all nodded agreement, feeling that we had grasped something fundamental about the nature of sheep.
The creature rested limply in the barrow. There was no need for string or restraint of any kind. In fact, it seemed only too happy to lie there pathetically and allow the Princes transport it back to the barn, where it might or might not decide to live.
‘Time for a cup of tea?’ I said, reaching for le Comte’s hand, and together we staggered back to the house.
‘Can we have lunch now?’ asked the Princesses hopefully, as we approached the kitchen door.
Le Comte glanced at the clock and groaned loudly, ‘It’s half past four!’ he cried. ‘I haven’t got time for lunch. I have to go to the dentist.’ With which he leapt into le Range and zoomed off.
It had taken five hours to catch the sheep.
‘Just us then. How about pasta?’ I suggested brightly to the assembled crew. The Princes and Princesses nodded with relief.