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Happy St Skeletor’s Day my fine friend. May Satan curse you all.
We didn’t see any lambs being born at
Wroxham Barns, but we saw some lambs that had recently been born. And no dead sheep. Or seals. Or any dead animals at all. Only living ones. We did get a talk about sheep from a young man who didn’t seem to know anything about sheep. At least he asked his audience of toddlers and small children questions, rather than telling them any facts. “What do you think it means if a sheep has a red spot painted on its wool?” We don’t know mate - you’re meant to tell us. My favourite was him asking the under 5s what they thought colostrum was. None of them knew.
I managed to trick Ernie though. The teenager asked what were the signs that a sheep was going to give birth. -Mate, YOU tell US. That’s your job - and I whispered to Ernie “There’s a lamb hanging out of their bottom” and Ernie shouted it out. And the teenager admitted that that was a sign, but probably a late one. But I had satirised him and made my son look like a fool. So it was a win/win.
Ernie made up for it though, because when the boy man asked if anyone had any questions for him - yes mate, that’s the way it’s meant to work: You give the answers - Ernie asked why the sheep had earrings. They all had little markers on their ears which told you where they were from and which sheep they were, because even people who work with sheep can’t tell them apart. “Good question!” said the sheepman. And he knows all about questions. The only downside is that he will now be asking that one to his next group of clueless children.
There was lots of fun things to do at Wroxham though. In fact a big colourful sign promised a “Field of Fun”. Shall we go to the Field of Fun asked one of the teenager sons of our friend - he seemed very excited by the prospect. What could be in there?
It turned out that the field of fun was one empty field and then another field with about 10 sheep in it. We’d seen a lot of sheep already and these didn’t look special. A sign said they were a rare breed, but that claim wasn’t helped by the fact that there were 10 of them. But even if they were rare, I don’t think looking at 10 rare sheep constitutes “fun”. The place might have been more accurately named “Field of Sheep” or perhaps more accurately “Field”. Maybe more accurately “Boring Field - don’t come in here. There are rides you can go on.”
We stayed in the field of fun for about two minutes and I have to say it wasn’t the most fun of the day. Or even the most field. Then we had some lunch and went to the “Field of Unexcitement” (it wasn’t called that, but should have been) which was full of rides and a train you could go on and mini golf and trampolines. The people of Wroxham have a weird way of looking at things.
It was a good day out and the sun shone all day.
Our slightly isolated cottage had a few spooky glitches today though. The toaster, which worked fine yesterday, tripped the fuses (luckily I found the fuse box) and tonight the smoke alarm started beeping as the battery was flat and somehow I managed to work out how to get it off the ceiling and stop it beeping, because I am a handyman genius (and my wife told me that although the alarm has some residual charge once the battery is removed, you can get rid of it by holding down the button). It felt a bit like electricity was trying to get us though. Especially later when watching “The Last of Us” and the security lights at the front and back of the property kept coming on. Was there a prowler outside? Or a fox? Each time I’d look out and see nothing which was in some ways spookier than seeing something. Though not as spooky as seeing an axe murderer of a zombie with fungus in its mouth.
Eventually we worked out that the lights were probably being activated by tar fumes coming out of the boiler flue. Probably. If I don’t write tomorrow then you’ll know it was a fungal zombie.
Apparently it’s a quarter of a century since the first episode of TMWRNJ. And in celebration the Curious Orange has come out of retirement (and back from the dead - did he die? I don’t remember)
to give you this special message. Thanks to Paul Putner for this timely reminder of how old we all are now.
