Rural excitements

It began so peacefully. There we are, walking along the deserted road through the fields, when we stop to admire the patterns formed by a flock of sheep being expertly managed by a dog on a distant field on the hillside. Where are they going, we wonder. A Land Rover appears down the farm road and stops at the end of it, blocking half the road we're walking on. The sheep begin to disappear through a gate and out of sight behind some silage tanks. The shepherd - a boy on a quad bike - suddenly races down the farm track, pauses to talk to the woman in the Land Rover, turns into the road and heads towards us.

It's only at this point that the penny drops. The sheep are even now racing between the stone walls of the farm road, heading for the main road, for the white Land Rover which has been cunningly sited to direct them ... in our direction. By now we are walking again, quite rapidly, not quite trotting (for we are not sheep). We round the bend and see the quad bike now stopped at the top of another track which leads downhill to a distant field. This is some small distance ahead of us ...

By now we are really hurrying. We can't hear anything, but I turn just in time to see the leaders of the flock coming round the bend, charging along, all leaning into the curve to the manner born, their feet barely making a sound on the tarmac road. The shepherd boy is grinning - and well may he - as we skip past him just in time and the sheep turn off the road and down between the trees. 

So that, O Best Beloved, is why the photos aren't much cop - but they do give a flavour of our rural excitement for today. (The extra photo shows the tail end of the herd just arriving as the shepherd gets back on his machine.)

Who said life in the country was dull?