ITS NOT JUST SHEEP WHO NEED SAVING - March 2013

Having very nearly caught up with current time, Will asked me one afternoon what I was going to blog about once I have run out of stories and the builders have gone. I told him I hadn't a clue, as not much happens up here. Then that very evening at about 11 pm ...

... we heard Gizmo knocking at the front door (another strange habit - he knocks to come in!) The knocking became louder as we realised all our cats were all accounted for so Will went to look, and standing at the front door was a slightly built, elderly gentleman wearing very muddy walking gear. He was lost and disorientated after a cold, damp day in the mountains and had left his wife in a field somewhere as she was exhausted.

We invited him in but he was worried about leaving a trail of mud accumulated from having fallen over several times. Fortunately mud in our house goes unnoticed, but he felt better when I covered the settee with a blanket for him to sit on. Once he had recovered a little, Will took him out to find his wife. 20 minutes or so later, they arrived back having found his wife across a couple of fields, sheltering by some farm machinery. Will had given her fireman lifts over fences as she too was slightly built, elderly, very cold and suffering from exhaustion.

They stayed to warm up by the fire and re-quench their thirst. They had set out at 9.00 that morning to walk up the mountain (which should have taken about an hour from the car park they used). They never found the peak, so at 2 pm had begun the descent back down. Disorientated, with no mobile phone signal, and unprepared for such a long arduous trek, they had come down the wrong side of the mountain, over steep rocks and crags until they saw our lights on and headed for our house. It's fortunate we were still up! They had been walking, climbing and falling for 14 hours instead of the 2 it should have taken.

Once they had regained their strength, Will drove them to their car parked on the other side of the mountain and pointed them in the right direction for their lodgings about 30 minutes away.

The next day, temperatures plummeted to well below zero.

And what valuable lesson have I learnt from this experience?

... that we need a blind on our bedroom Velux window! I thought we were safe from exposure to the world, as it points up hill, and nobody in their right minds would be walking up there at 11 o'clock in the evening when I'm preparing for bed ... apparently not so!

And they weren't the only late night visitors - on another occasion, a few weeks later, a local farmer had reversed his van into a field and become stuck in the mud. He had come to ask Will if he could tow him out. No problem for Will and The Beastie!

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Not much to say about the house, but I hope I don't get anyone into trouble here ... I find it very refreshing to be among builders where there is not a hard hat in sight and as for the scaffolding, well, I'll let you make your own conclusions ...

The garden is still very much a building site.

I can't wait to get it tidied up and plant some attractive plants ... oh no - I forgot - I can't. The goats seem to have spent a disproportionate amount of time in our garden during these long winter months while food has been sparse up on the mountain and now food is also sparse in my garden!

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The only other news is that the longest zip wire in the northern hemisphere has just opened not too far from us. At about a mile long with speeds over 100 mph, that's one place you will not be finding me! See http://www.zipworld.co.uk/ 

Richard - don't grow any taller or you won't be allowed on it!



Next blog - Sheep all look the same? Don't you believe it!