Just like the tale of A Chicken called Sandwich over on my ‘small page’, we once had a sheep called Sandwich.

I found Sandwich (named because there was more meat in a sandwich than on the poor lamb) in a field, close to death. It was obvious that he couldn’t walk though he did try to stand. I went to tell the farmer, but was told he had died that morning. The family informed me that they would see to the lamb straight away. I trusted this would happen, but a gut feeling told me to check on this the following day. Sandwich was still there and still suffering.

     So I went to the farm again and told them about the lamb.

     ‘I will take the lamb myself if that would help you!’ I said to the obviously grieving family.

     ‘Take it!’ was the reply and so that’s exactly what I did.

     Without even consulting my kind and unassuming husband, I carefully laid the tiny lamb on the front seat of my car and drove home. I didn’t stop to consider what I would do with it, apart from taking it to the vets for a check up.

      Back at our home for waifs and strays, we were greeted by three fat cats and a curious husband.

      ‘I have something on my front seat that is very precious,’ I said seriously, ‘and there was nothing I could do but to bring it home.’

      My kind and unassuming husband opened the door and stared at the little lamb sleeping contentedly on my coat. He picked him up gently and without questions, carried him into the house.

      ‘We have to take him to the vet,’ I said, so I went inside and called him.

      With the help and advice from the vet on the phone, Sandwich soon had a bottle of proper lamb’s milk and a lot of love. He looked at us and bleated whilst his woolly tail wagged. He couldn’t walk but I took it that he was feeling a lot better.

      But later that day the vet x-rayed poor Sandwich and we learnt that his back was broken, probably hit by a car. We decided to let Sandwich stay in this world until the following morning, with the help of pain relief, so that he would know what love and kindness was before being put to sleep.

      Although Sandwich lived such a short while, even the daffodils lived longer, he died peacefully, knowing someone cared.

One day I went to the shop to buy milk and came home with a goat called Billie! I had no idea what I was going to do with Billie, but I assumed it would all fall into place. I was wrong.

     My kind and unassuming husband was very surprised when I opened the gate to our home for waifs and strays with a goat in tow. The bearded animal snorted when he saw the garden. Heaven, he must have thought, a Billie Goats Heaven!

     I was a very kind but assuming wife, my husband said, to think that we could easily accommodate this animal that had one eye on the washing line and another on our prized allotment. But Billie was here to stay, at least for the time being.

     He didn’t make friends easily, which was probably due to his horns. These  had the potential to toss an unsuspecting person into the air. And they certainly scared many of our friends away.

     And he escaped, once or twice, could have been more but I hate to think about it. Oh, the trouble it caused. We thought that Gilbert the Great was a handful, but Billie the Goat beat him hands down.

     ‘A goat can live for twenty or more years,’ a friend told me kindly, ‘but I suggest you don’t tell your kind and unassuming husband that.’

    ‘He’s probably not far off old age,’ I replied and instantly felt sorry for poor Billie.      

     I knew we couldn’t keep Billie indefinitely, our home for waifs and strays just wasn’t right for him.

      ‘We could rent him out,’ I said jokingly, to my kind and unassuming husband many months later. ‘Someone must need a natural lawnmower.’

      He shook his head and said that Billie deserved somewhere permanent. I agreed.

       It was after Billie got into the allotment, that we sought a new home for him. I asked Tom the Egg (he really did exist) if he would put some posters around the villages and off he went on his new bicycle.

       Within two days, someone called and asked all about Billie. What he looked like, colour, size etc. When I had given them a full description, they asked if they could come to see him straight away.

        Well, what a surprise. Billie found a new home on the stage. He was to star in a play which was running for another four nights, then live the rest of his days on a farm close by.

        I have often been to visit Billie and delighted to write, that he is a happily retired acting goat.

 Goodnight Billie! I often wonder where you came from.

To feed their children, Nicrphorus the investigator and his wife, excavates the soil beneath dead bodies so that they sink into the ground and drop into their pantry. However, these undertakers will always examine the condition of the carcass before the burial takes place.

     These unsuspecting grave diggers (Saxton beetles) have bulbous orange-tipped antennae’s that are sensitive to the decaying bodies of small birds and mammals and they will fly a mile or so to find carrion before carrying out their gruesome task.

     Despite their gory lifestyle, Mrs Nicrphorus is a good mother and will lay her eggs beside the decaying flesh so her young can feed on it for a whole year. She will also stay with them the entire time.

     Just recently, whilst out walking, I bumped into Nicrophorus the investigator and asked him what on earth was he carrying on his back. He told me that the tiny cheeky mites hitch a lift on his body because they know he will take them to a supply of food and somewhere where they can also lay their eggs.

      What a strange and wonderful world we live in. And to think, we have grave diggers and body snatchers right on our doorstep!

Nothing reminds me of my childhood more than bales of hay. The sight of them in the fields around our home for waifs and strays always makes me heave a peaceful sigh. The freshly cut grass left drying in the sun tells me that summer has arrived again.

     ‘Come down off that tractor!’ my poor father used to shout at me. ‘They don’t need your help with the hay!’ What he was trying to say was, ‘I’m afraid of you falling under its wheels!’ But spending my entire childhood in the country, taught me to take risks!

      I scrumped apples from the farmer’s orchards then ran like a rabbit when he chased me. I climbed and fell out of trees and rode half wild ponies bare back through the valley and across the beach. There wasn’t a cave I hadn’t entered in the steep cliffs surrounding our home. It was no wonder my father worried.

      But sitting with my comics on a summer’s day, leaning against a bale of hay, was one of my greatest memories of all. Perhaps it was the peacefulness, the simplicity of the time I spent growing up in a child’s paradise.

Driving through the long and winding country lanes of Wales, during these spring months, reminds me of my school rambles. The sudden burst of flowers, with colours to send an artist running for his brushes, vie for the suns attention and its warmth. 

      Wild garlic mixed in with forget me nots and stinky bobs (herb Robert) and honeysuckle, to mention just a few. A heady mix of aromas rush through my camper window as I slow the pace right down, wanting the moment to last; wanting to remember the images of my childhood once again.

       My father called the hedges mini nature reserves, which they are, in their own right. This vibrant ecosystem is home to insects, field mice, butterflies and birds. Slowworms hide in the tall grass and hedgehogs hibernate there when there is nowhere else to go.

       Birds nest in the brambles, embroidered around the dead wood which is home to invertebrates and food for the bats. The great crested newts scurry through the stems upon which you will find the stag beetle and the scorpion fly.  

       As a child I imagined fairies living in the granny’s bonnets and could never understand how some people say they resemble an eagle’s claw. And the bees that buzz inside them, a perfect setting for a child’s imagination. It’s no wonder I grew up the way I did.

       And let us not forget the road on which I travel, the same road that was once a dirt track winding its way between these hedgerows and used by our ancestors down through the years.

       Oh if only hedges could talk! But then again they don’t need too; it is all there for everyone to see, hear, feel, taste, and touch. It is a world within a world, a commune of creatures and plants all depending on this natural habitat in order to survive. Long live the hedges!