I’m still not convinced about the feeding. We will keep them in for another day.

Perhaps because she was bottle fed herself and still thinks she is a lamb and not an adult ewe. I brought Poddy into the barn with her baby so that we can keep an eye on them and try to encourage Poddy to become a mother.

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All the girls (and when they married, their husbands too) remained close friends all their lives.

Her immigrant parents had arrived in England and worked hard to build a business selling tailor’s trimmings and also brought up eight children (several others had died as infants).

Grandma was crippled with arthritis but she worked every day of her adult life and never complained about the pain that marked every step she took. She and grandpa had just one child, my mother and she was loved but not cosseted or spoiled.

I was grandma’s first grandchild

My brother arrived 13 months later. We lived in a block of flats directly opposite Grandma Anne and Grandpa Charles. We could look from our kitchen window into theirs and wave at each other. Grandma Katy and Grandpa Sam lived in that same block of flats on a higher floor. How lucky were my brother and I to have the love and attention and sometimes the escape route of four grandparents just across the way?

Although Grandma could no longer dance she would sit in her armchair, grandpa would put on a record and grandma would instruct me in how to dance the Russian kazachka. She taught me to play whist and kalooki and she knitted me jumpers and scarves and crocheted me dresses in the swinging sixties. I have inherited her love of word puzzles (Wordle the most recent) but sadly not her skill with the knitting needles.

When I was at primary school she took me on a magical trip to Covent Garden to watch Swan Lake. The memory of that night remains with me to this day.

Grandma Anne was everything that a grandma should be and the only time she ever told me her view about something I was going to do her words changed the course of my life and as a result I got married!

Spot was in labour all day but she couldn’t give birth. During the afternoon we called the vet and one of the really kind and caring vets (they are attached to Cambridge University and teach 60 students per year) raced out and was here within half an hour.

He prepped himself and gelled his hands and arms and had to pull out two dead lambs from poor Spot. The lambs showed all the deformities associated with the Schmallenberg virus which is a disease passed by midge bites to cattle and sheep. You can Google this or look at my explanation on TikTok (see Gillyofthegables)

Last year we had 22 live lambs born here but this year only 12 with 6 born dead. The vet told us that the small flock they keep at the vet school have had similar problems. Tragic. Two more sheep are still to lamb so we are holding our breath. Poor old Spot.

And a friend and his daughter called in to say hello

The furrows in our ridge and furrow field look like brooks. I feel sorry for the sheep who have perpetually wet hooves. Both barns are open yet many of the flock choose to remain outdoors.

But I’m not a tree and I get a bit fed up with the mud!