Friday, 26 July 2013

A Dichotomous Sheep.

I’ve been meaning to mention this for a few days, but kept forgetting.

Sam-and-Ange the Sheep Farmers had a good lambing this year (which seems odd considering how late the winter went on, but Ange insists they did.) The lambs are quite big now, almost as big as their mothers, and one of them has horns.

I’ve never seen a lamb with horns before. They're not the curly sort that you see on beasts wearing coats and leading men in uniform at military parades, they’re the sort that grow upwards at a slight angle and then curve outwards, the sort that used to make the covers of Dennis Wheatley books in the days when Dennis Wheatley was a leading author of occult fiction.

(You want to know why I’m not posting a picture of him, don’t you? It’s because I only have conventional 35mm equipment, and that’s a very expensive way to take pictures. And, on top of that, both camera bodies have gone west – or south if you’re American.)

So, anyway, he makes an odd sight because he looks both cute and diabolical at the same time. In fact, he reminded me of the ghostly sheep I wrote about in The Helvellyn Ram, the one which tried to lead my friend to a watery demise.

No comments: