94 LISTENER JUNE 8 2019
THE GOOD LIFE
I
awoke the other morning to
find myself transformed into a
giant, old crock.
This was, I suppose, prefer-
able to Kafka’s poor old Gregor
Samsa, who woke one morning
to find that he had been trans-
formed into a giant bug. But does
a giant bug have to roll creakily
out of bed and clean its teeth?
Or attempt to butter its toast? Or
stagger out into the frost to feed
the lambs their apples? I think
not. Becoming a bug, I thought
bitterly, might be preferable to
waking up to find oneself old.
I had turned into an old person
overnight because, as some
might recall, I stupidly caught
my gumboot in the strap of my
handbag and fell out of the car
onto a gravel drive. A few days
later, the middle toe of my right foot
swelled up. It looked like a miniature
rotten banana. Greg strapped it up
and I hobbled about, stoically, like a
country person.
Then my left shoulder went bung.
Then my right hand went completely
bung.
It was so swollen it looked like a
bunch of miniature rotten bananas.
I did what a person who wasn’t pre-
tending to be a stoic country person
would do – I whimpered and whined,
and went to the doctor.
“Beware Curse of Age” was theWaking one day
to aches and pains
calls to mind Kafka’s
character who
became an insect.
Bugger
ominous and gloomy headline last week in The
Country, a weekly insert in our local rag. The
accompanying story was not cheerful reading: 64
injuries are acquired on farms every day. Fourteen
of those 64 are caused by animals. Last year, 1141
people were injured by sheep.
The statistics do not record how many people
were injured by handbags that, if made of leather,
might qualify as injuries by animals (deceased). I
don’t know how many of these accidents were theresult of being a crock. There is also no account of
how many of these injuries are self-inflicted by silly
city people who move to the country and pretend
that they have been transformed, overnight, into
youthful farmers.P
ride comes before a pratfall. I had been strut-
ting about our land, swollen with pride before
being swollen with injury. This was the result
of being told by Janet, Miles the sheep farmer’s
wife, that he had told her that I was “nearly a
farmer”.
This was before I asked him why there were two
black rams in with the black ewes. Because I amnearly a farmer I know that there
should be only one ram in any ewe
paddock to ensure a pure bloodline.
Miles looked at me and said: “There
is only one ram.” I insisted that this
could not be the case as the second
ram, Blackie, had enormous, unmiss-
able, bollocks. Those, said Miles, as
straight-faced as ever, were udders.
He does not, unlike my secondary
school biology teachers, give up
easily. Would I like to come and
observe embryos being inserted
into sheep? The sheep to be
impregnated in this way are not
Miles’ kingsmeade east friesians.
They are coopworth sheep,
known to be excellent surrogate
mothers, which is how you
increase your pure-bred flock.
I was keen to go and watch
science in action. I hoped I would
have to wear one of those suits
that sexy forensic medical exam-
iners wear on the telly, though I
wasn’t so keen on those hats that
make even the sexiest forensic
medical examiner look like Coro-
nation Street’s Ena Sharples.
Science in action in the coun-
try means that the lab is a pretty
old red barn. The gurneys the
surrogate mums lie on during the
operation appear to have been con-
structed to a Heath Robinson design.
It was all very innovative and a tad
eccentric and, despite being nearly a
farmer, I came over a bit queasy. The
sheep were perfectly content; they
had been given some very nice drugs.
I could have done with some of what-
ever they were having.
But gender confusion and a weak
stomach aside, I feel I am making
strides in my quest to become a
proper farmer. They just happen to beG the strides of an old crock. l
RE
G^
D
IX
O
N
Udder disbelief: is Blackie a ewe or a ram?I hoped I would
have to wearone of those
suits that sexy
forensic medicalexaminers wear
on the telly.MICHELE
HEWITSON