The seals were not to be seen on Saturday so I thought I'd photograph some of the sheep that roam across the headland. They are very agile and can often be seen perched on the cliffs above the waves. They generally don't fall off the cliffs unless people disregard the dogs-on-leads request and allow their dogs to spook them when they may fall over the edge. This particular breed of sheep has much better 'cliff sense' than the previous sheep that were kept on the headland, who would fall off for a past time and have to be rescued (expensively) by the coastguards or cliff rescue. I know this because David Kennard whose sheep these are came to talk at our WI a few years ago. ( www.sheepdogvideo.co.uk ) David is a very intelligent young man who followed his dream. He wasn't a local but came every year with his family for a summer holiday on a farm at Mortehoe. As a young man he returned and was employed by the farmer and had the opportunity to learn how to train sheep dogs. Eventually he took over the tenancy of the farm and when farming declined economically he diversified into writing books and making videos about his sheepdogs and they are excellent. In this way he and his family can still run the farm. When he came to talk to us he brought one of his dogs and she sat there watching his every word.
If you are wondering the coloured marks are from a pad strapped to the ram so that the farmer can tell which ram has ......... had his way with the ewes and when to expect the lambs.
If you look closely you can see lots of white blobs on the grass, these are not tufts of sheep's wool but blobs of foam blown up from the sea.
Funny moment from school today- I've just changed the role play area in my classroom from a post office into a health clinic, (the school nurse came last week and did general height /weight/ sight checks). One very small girl was sitting on a chair in the 'waiting room' with her hands clasped over her stomach, "This baby is coming soon." she announced. A few minutes later she was helping the 'Doctor' to cut open her tummy with a pair of plastic play scissors. Childbirth is obviously featuring high in their thoughts at the moment. In our central play area we have a 'Police Station' so there is a lot of 'robber catching' going on at playtime but we haven't put out the play handcuffs as they caused a few problems last year.
