I think we could all have done without the early start and busy day today but it wasn’t to be so everyone was up and ready to go by 9am.
Ady had a busy day herding his little flock of two around: First Scarlett had Wildlife Explorers over at Pulborough Brooks. It was the Christmas Party today so she enjoyed being with her friends there for the hour. I’m not sure if Davies and Ady managed a walk round or just hung out in the cafe while she was in there. At 11am they swapped and Davies went in for his Wildlife Explorers session Christmas Party which is way longer at 2.5 hours. Ady whizzed Scarlett back over this way where she went to a Rainbows / Brownies Christmas crafts day. There were four sessions although she missed the first one which was making Christmas cards she still got to make sweets, an advent calendar, a very heavily decorated snowman and have a fab few hours with her friends.
Ady collected Davies at 130pm and they found a McDonalds for their lunch as Davies is collecting the current range of Happy Meal Star Wars toys. They picked Scarlett up and 330pm and came home. They had an early tea, followed by some rowdy playing and another early, trying-to-catch- up on the sleep deficit night. This didn’t have much effect as Tarly was very excited about her birthday tomorrow and found it very hard to get to sleep mind you.
Meanwhile I headed off in the opposite direction to Stanmer Park, where we go for Springwatch, Apple Day and the kids’ had Forest School. This time it was for a Lookerers course.I heard about this when we were at Stanmer for the Apple Day event and thought it sounded really interesting so signed up for it. I quite like sheep and they have always been Davies’ favourite animal. I thought it wuuld be a great way to integrate a tiny bit more of my wannabe smallholders lifestyle into my life, a great way of learning more about something, more free training and CV adding experiences and frankly a very cool thing to drop into conversations ;).
I arrived and introduced myself to the rest of the group – we were 12 in all and a rather interesting mix. Two were men who work in office jobs and had found details of the lookerer initiative on the Brighton and Hove website when they went to pay their council tax, thought it sounded like an interesting antidote to the Monday- Friday desk bound work life so signed up, two more were planning to be smallholders one day and keen to gain experience and knowledge, another was a newly passionate volunteer for anything and everything he could find to volunteer for, several more were outdoorsy types who had heard about it and thought it sounded good, one was the son of a shepherd who had long since left country ways behind but found himself hankering for a touch of it and finally we had a journalist from The Times there to write a story about being a shepherd! Myself excluded the only Crazy seemed to be the woman who had also seen the sheep at Apple Day, fallen in love with them as they were so beautiful and felt she had been called to take care of them. Interestingly she later was not at all inclined to actually touch them 😆
The morning was classroom based and took in why they are grazing sheep (conservation, protecting wildlife and chalk grass downland, environmentally friendly rather than fossil-fuel driven mowing, creating no waste product (other than sheep poo which alllotment holders come and collect and sheep which go back into the food chain) and sustainable), the law regarding sheep and DEFRA regulations, a shepherds year (both conservation and commercial shepherds), what to look for while lookering in terms of sheep health and wellbeing and some common ailments sheep suffer from. We learnt about the history of the South Downs geologically and looked at old maps of the area and then saw pictures and heard graphic descriptions of fly strike, scald, footrot, scab and other sheep related mishaps. The session was led by the main ranger for Brighton and Hove and the farmer who works for Sussex Wildlife Trust and owns the sheep that graze on their land over the winter.
It was all fascinating. I learnt loads and in the same way as I’ve found the WPA course to be full of content and am interested in and therefore soak up like a sponge I realised again how much this sort of stuff appeals to me. Weird huh?! 🙂
We had lunch and chatted which was good, always nice to learn more about new people. The farmer was probably the most interesting, I really enjoyed listening to him :). After lunch we jumped into 3 landrovers and headed over to his farm. We were split into two groups and I was in the group that went off to the field first to learn about electric fencing.
We erected an electric fence, connected up the power and then tested it at various points to ensure the current was flowing. We were shown how to break the circuit so we can perform basic maintenance and checks. All very hands on and practical.
Next we went bacl to the barn and were shown a flock of sheep and how to handle sheep including how to roll them so you can inspect their feet and under their belly. I was very surprised that not everyone wanted to have a go at this when we were offered the chance as it is possibly one of those not to be missed experiences in life! I can’t wait to have a slot to go and look at sheep and impress Ady and the kids with my sheep rolling skills 🙂
We were taken back to Stanmer Park and left as trained lookerers. Quite the most quirky day I’ve spent in a while :).
I came home via Tesco for various bits and while gazing into the mirrored window while in the queue I spotted my Mum’s reflection. It took me ages to work out precisely where she really was with all the mirror effects 😆 We had a brief chat and made arrangements for tomorrow which saved me a later phonecall.
Finally home where Ady greeted me with a cup of tea and a lovely warm bath. X Factor, the end of last night’s half written post, everything flickr’d and when she eventually did go to sleep Scarlett’s presents wrapped.
I’m very tired and suspect it will be another Not Lie In tomorrow so am going to bed, just a few minutes before life changed forever this time seven years ago.