Friends reunited

When we started Tales From The Rock we were not really sure what it was about or what it was for. We used to keep a day book, mainly this comprised of a jobs list that carried on over the pages and as they were done they were crossed off, but the actual writing of the list became a chore in itself as it ran over a couple of A4 sides daily. Then it was a message book illustrated with a collection of pictures and cartoons of life here at Rock HQ. Then technology arrived, broadband was connected and so we turned the day book into a repository of tales of life here at Rock HQ, the addition of digital pictures and video expanded the site and now we get over 20,ooo visits a month from over 40 countries across the globe. We get emails from Argentina asking about the weather, from Australia asking about pigs and Devon telling us how a dog called Lily is faring. We also get to keep in touch with family and friends.

So the website has many functions, and we keep threatening to expand its role, adding recipe pages, a rogues gallery and so on. I suppose the main function is really as an antidote to the ubiquitous "How to books..." the bane of any right minded folk. So ours is a "How not to..." site, one that apparently entertains a lot of people. However yesterday a new function of the site was revealed.

Our pesky Ryelands who have until recently resided on the doorstep for some inexplicable reason all ran away. Somewhere out on the great common there were 16 of our sheep, and as we live on the very edge of the common, and as its very large they could be anywhere over the million or so acres of wilderness that is our back yard. The only thing that prevents them getting two million miles away is a perimeter fence all along the boundary.

Yesterday someone was walking along the ridge, and at a point that is the furthest you can get from our cottage to the boundary fence in a straight line they spotted two little lambs trying to scrape a meal from the snow. Now this walker by some strange quirk of fate also read these pages and having seen the lambs, noticed they were different to the usual lambs on the ridge and was kind enough to e mail the coordinates of the pair.

As Rene is out of action Fifi Focus was press ganged and somehow made it to the top of the hill where 4x4's fear to tread. We had contemplated walking over to get the lambs but as we had been Agnesed the day before both of us felt we had been hit by freight trains so rather than undo the inevitable good the nice osteopath had done we opted for mechanised shepherding. There they were, just as the e mail said and in front of an audience of around a thousand New Years Day walkers who no doubt thought they were witnessing sheep rustling first hand the two wayward sheep were bundled into the back of the estate car and driven home for dinner. Their dinner not ours I hasten to add. Here are a few pics of the adventure. Now we only have to find Meg and Rosie and the whole flock will he reunited.

So a massive thank you to D, whoever you are you reunited the lambs with their flock. If you pass Rock HQ say hello, if you time it right you might get a bacon sarnie.