Regular readers of this blog - hello, both of you - will know that we used to have a small flock of sheep, who started life here as orphan lambs and then were kept on and some of them produced their own lambs in time.  My beloved PFS, Gollom, Bob and Snugs were the mainstay of the 14 or so sheep we had up until the end of 2010.  PFS went the way of all flesh in October 2009 and we sold the rest of the girls (and a few boys including male twins born to Snugs) to our neighbour, Farmer Edward, later that year.

I didn't expect to see them again, but a couple of days ago I was coming back from my morning walk with Merryck along the lane that runs behind our field - Dead Horse Lane.  I don't know why it's called Dead Horse Lane.  Maybe a horse dropped dead in the lane a couple of hundred years ago or if you're shouting at someone else at the end of the lane it'll make you lose your voice or become "dead horse".  (Boom, boom! As Basil Brush used to say). Anyway, I digress.  So we're wandering up the lane, keeping an eye out for horses - dead or otherwise - when I bump into Farmer Edward unloading some sheep in one of the fields that he owns with Dave the Major (as Keith and I call him.  He's no more a major than there are dead horses in Dead Horse Lane, but his moustache gives him the look of a military man of some standing and to our minds it suits). Farmer Edward greeted me with the words: "Recogniseanyof'em".  (At least I think that's what he might have said. Farmer Edward has lived here all his life and has a wonderfully rich Devon accent, tends to roll all his words together, and now and then he also throws in some colloquialisms for good measure. Seven years I've lived here and I'm still not always entirely sure what he's actually said to me.)

Well, I did recognise some of them.  Bob for a start.  At least I think it was Bob.  I even told Farmer Edward that one of them was Bob.  He looked at me a bit funny.  I don't think he names his sheep, or perhaps he doesn't give them names like Bob.  'Tis a funny name - for a sheep, especially a girl sheep and if you don't know why she's called Bob you'll have to go back quite a long way in this blog! Anyway, not wanting to look any more foolish in the farmer's eyes I moved on - still a townie after all these years, calling my sheep daft things like Bob!

But the next morning there I was over the gate calling them all to me to see who was coming up for a cuddle.  There was one that came over sooner than the others and seemed to respond when I called her Bob.  Was it her?  Not even I can really tell, not after all this time. Can you?