Rescued From The Flock

“Have you managed to get Alice brought out to France yet?”

“Oh, Kate, I’ve tried to contact the farmer, left so many messages, but he never rings me back. I’ve not heard a word from him since we left two years ago. I think she must have died and he doesn’t dare tell me!”

“Right,” she replied “What’s his number? I’ll give him a call now!”

“It won’t do any good you’ll just get the answerphone and he never rings back.” I told her despondently.

She gave me a wicked grin, “Yes, but I haven’t rung him yet, have I?”

Her call went straight to answerphone - as always.

She winked at me as she left her message, “Hello. My name is Kate Green and I’m interested in some sheep. Please could you call me back as soon as possible.”

Literally only two minutes passed before the phone rang! Kate quickly put the phone on loud speaker.

“Thank you so much for returning my call. Um…It’s not actually sheep in general that I’m interested in, but one sheep in particular?”

I could hear the resignation in his voice as he replied, “Alice!”

“Yes!” Kate said, grinning at me again. “We were wondering what’s happened to her, is she alright?”

As he assured her Alice was fine, and I let out the breath I had inadvertently been holding, feeling tears prick my eyes, she was still alive!

He explained how, since our move to France, the laws had changed, and exported lambs now had to be a lot smaller than before and due to Alice’s size, he wouldn’t be able to slip her through with the rest of them as we had planned.

Why has he never bothered to explain that to me? I thought resentfully.

“Well, we’d like her back please, so that we can make alternative arrangements for her.”

“No problem.”

Between them they arranged for Alice’s collection the very next day – in a field in the middle of rural Norfolk!

We used her car as, in her words, it was already filthy and a few sheep droppings wouldn’t make it any worse.

“And anyway, you don’t want your car smelling of sheep all the way back to France!” She wisely added. And I had to agree.

“But it’s a Ford Fiesta! We’ll never get her in that, she’s huge – or at least she was!” I added, trepidation echoing in my voice.

“The back seats go down, there’ll be plenty of room.” Kate replied somewhat indignantly.

During the journey Kate began to reminisce, “She was so tiny and half dead when she was brought into the kitchen for you to look after, I remember you stomach tubing her to get some food in! I didn’t think she’d make it!”

“Nor did I! It took me weeks to get her strong enough to return to the flock – by which time of course I’d got so fond of her I couldn’t let her go! All the other lambs only ever stayed a few days, but Alice had become part of the family.”

“I remember coming round once and she was quite happily curled up in the dog basket with Jobey and two of the cats, poor Jobey looked so forlorn.”

“Yes, he was always very indignant about having to share.” I laughed. “Do you remember too how she constantly followed me around and bleat so pitifully every time I was out of her sight?”

“I do! Oh, she was such a cutey!”

“That’s not what my mother said!” Laughing, I continued, “Instead of the oohs and ahs and ‘Oh isn’t she sweet!’ comments I was used to when people first met Alice, all I got from my mother when she entered the kitchen was, “Ugh! It absolutely stinks in here!”

“Well, when you live with a smell, you get used to it and can’t smell it anymore,” Kate replied laughing, “Been there, done that! Is that when she was delegated to ‘Outside’?”

“Yep. Poor Alice she never understood why she’d been banned so suddenly, and she’d do everything trying to gain access once more! The hours she spent nibbling at those keys in the door, she knew that was how it was opened – the dogs never sussed that one out!”

“People always say how stupid sheep are, but she certainly wasn’t! I remember watching her open the garden gate once, I was amazed! She nudged the latch with her nose, took one step back to let the gate swing open and walked straight through!” Kate replied.

“Yes, the little bugger, she did it all the time! Then she’d go into the barn and raid the sheep food stores!” I smiled in fond recollection. “Oh God, and I remember one time though when she escaped and ate too many of the sheep pellets which nearly killed her! They expand in the stomach and can cause a sheep to suffocate. I came home just in time and rushed her straight to the vet.

“Having only been to the vets before with domestic animals,” I continued, “I took Alice into the waiting room, where she immediately let go of everything she’d kindly not let out in the car and promptly shat very runny diarrhea all over the floor!”

Kate snorted, “Oh my God, what did you do?”

“I was mortified! I didn’t know what to do! The receptionist arrived with a mop and bucket and, non-too pleased, helped me clean it up. Haha it was at that point that I was told, in no uncertain terms, the ‘usual door for farm animals’ was at the back!”

“Yeah, but she wasn’t a farm animal, she was Alice. Oh, I did love coming with you all for walks on that golf course by the farm, I used to laugh so much every time the golfers did those double-takes as they witnessed Alice tagging along and behaving exactly like the dogs!” Kate chuckled at the memory.

“She used to dig at rabbit holes with them too!” I laughed, “She never seemed quite sure as to why they were digging at them, but was always quite happy to go along with it – she really did think she was a dog!

“Oh, and I’d take them all with me when I went blackberrying too, the dogs would mill around sniffing out rabbits or whatever, but Alice would always pick blackberries right next to me – mind you she never put them in the basket, she ate the lot! She used to have a purple muzzle for days afterwards!”

Kate laughed. “Oh, bless her. She even came to your wedding I remember! She was waiting outside the church for you, wearing that big red ribbon – she even tried to jump up at you, but luckily someone grabbed her collar - before she could ruin your dress.”

“And she was in the pantomime we did! She pulled Cinderella’s carriage! Do you remember?”

“Oh yes! I’d forgotten that! She was hilarious!” Kate replied. “I did remember her first birthday party though and that cake that Jenny made for her, she’d covered it in green icing and placed little plastic sheep on it, all prancing across the top.”

“I have to admit, that colour didn’t make it look the most appetising though; not that we got a chance to taste it of course, Alice couldn’t wait for it to be served and jumped up onto the table and scoffed the lot!”

“Her whole face was plastered in green icing, I remember! She was such a hoot, it’s so sad that you’re not able to take her back to France with you. But hey we’ll just have to find her somewhere nice to live. I wish I could keep her, but as you know my garden just isn’t big enough.”

Buoyed by our memories, the two-hour journey passed by quickly and before we knew it we were in depths of the Norfolk countryside, our trip culminating in a conglomeration of dirt roads leading to the appointed destination - a muddy field of stubble turnips, secured by a temporary electric fence and filled with half-starved and filthy, mud-covered sheep. We were half an hour early. There was no sign of the farmer.

“If my Alice is as thin as the rest of those sheep, I’ll kill that man, I swear I will!”

Kate didn’t reply but, driving slowly over the grass adjoining to the turnip field, instead wound down her window and called, “AAAlice!” With the long drawn-out A, my standard call for her…

I peered past her at the flock, searching for any change of movement within it, but nothing, there was no sign of Alice. Kate tried again, louder, but still no reaction from the field. I restrained myself from calling until I was out of the car – I didn’t want to deafen the poor woman!

She pulled up as close to the field as she could and I quickly scrambled out, scanning the half-starved sheep, all knee deep in mud, then drew in a huge breath and called as loudly as possible, “AAAAAAAAAAAAlice!”

Suddenly, from the sea of sheep heads, one lone head lifted high above the others, bleated loudly, muscled its way through the mass and then a very large, very fat sheep emerged from the throng.

“Alice! Kate, it’s Alice! Look!”

I rushed to the edge of the field at roughly the same lightning speed that Alice bounded for the fence.

“Alice, oh my beautiful Alice! Even after two long years, you still remember me!”

She had evidently become leader of this little band of skinny misses because as soon as she ran towards us, the rest of them began to follow suit. I quickly stepped on the fence wires lowering them to the ground as Alice jumped neatly over and lunged herself into me, jumping-up just as a dog might – her front hooves on my shoulders, her head on a level with mine! The sheer weight of her forced me to take a step backwards and I quickly released the fence – I really didn’t fancy spending the next few hours rounding up escapees.

“Oh, Alice, how wonderful to see you, and you remembered my voice!” I knelt down and hugged her tightly as she nibbled my hair and nudged my cheek. Kate was suddenly beside me, “She hasn’t changed a bit, Kate! Look at her, she’s just as fat as she ever was!” Then adding as an afterthought, “Luckily for the farmer!”

There was still no sign of him and, as there seemed no reason to wait for him now that we’d achieved our rescue, the three of us wandered back to the car between cuddles, nibbles and hugs.

“No point in hanging around for him, we’ve got what we came for.” I said opening the car boot. “Come on, Alice, let’s go!”

Spritely still, despite her weight, she jumped nimbly into the car without a second thought, as if it was only yesterday that we’d been on one of our car trips together! I closed the back-door behind her, her woolly backside pressed tight against the back window, my face beaming, my heart fit to burst, my Alice was safe…and very much alive.

“So, now we’re sheep rustlers!” I joked.

Laughing, Kate quickly drove away from the field, both of us keen to reach the main road before the farmer arrived.

Alice was pretty cramped in the back of the tiny car, with her back tight against the ceiling, her backside pressed hard against the back window; the wool flattened, and her head protruding into the front in-between us. But she appeared as happy about her escape as we were and watched the fields fly by through the windscreen, chewed cud and belched regurgitated turnips.

“Oh, yuk Alice, that stinks!” Kate and I cried out in unison, before bursting into laughter as we quickly (also in unison) wound down the windows. Alice didn’t bat an eyelid at our complaints and proceeded to spend the entire two-hour journey happily burping and farting turnips, while our windows remained firmly open and our hair blew madly about our faces, knotting into what could be best described as wild bird’s nests.

As we sped along listening to the local radio, we both giggled like schoolchildren when the presenter announced (slightly disbelievingly) that he’d just received a call from a listener who had seen a tiny Ford Fiesta driving along the A12 with a giant sheep in the back!