LEJOG Day 33: Knighton to Mellington

Weather: Cloudy with strong westerley

Distance covered today: 23.0km (14.5mi)

Last night's B&B: Cosy Cottage (£40)

Cumulative distance: 637.3km (396.0mi)/ % Complete: 36.2%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 33 (click!)

The thing about sheep is that with all due respect, they are not the most inspiring of animals. They tend to behave in very much the same way as each other, and frankly, they are a bit gormless. I can hardly say that I know much about them, and I would certainly have benefitted from an accompanying expert. Still, I must have seen about a million of them since leaving Land’s End, and of course I’ve timed it to perfection as far as lambing is concerned: the lambs look all the same age, just like the never-ending bluebells!

Well, not quite. The lambs in Cornwall were definitely new-born, very dependent on Mum and learning successfully how to feed. As I have travelled north, they have gradually become a bit more independent, even sometimes venturing into adjoining fields with a resulting eruption of concern from both the lamb, who can’t find the way back and is yelling its head off, and Mum who is bleating fit to burst. At first, I applied my shepherding skills to reunite them if I could find the hole in the fence or open gate, but it became so frequent that I decided to leave it to Mum and the farmer.

Anyway, as the lambs get older, so they get bolder and start playing with each other. On a nice day, given the excellent grass, they seem overloaded with energy and often just jump for joy. More annoyingly for the ewe lambs, the ram lambs seem to enjoy jumping on top of them from behind. I wonder what that is all about? These gangs of lambs stray quite far from their mothers and in my opinion, they even have a sort of social hierarchy. There is a head little lamb who leads the play and the others seem to follow. At the first sign of danger, like me getting too close, they seem to split instantly and head home for Mum. As soon as they arrive, they give her a good shunt in the udders, presumably to trigger the let-down reflex, and tea is served. Lately though, I’ve noticed the mums becoming increasingly tetchy, often using a back leg to suggest that the menu should start to include grass.  Sadly, I have also often observed dead lambs, with their eyes picked out by crows and also fully grown ewes bleating continuously, raucously, presumably desperately trying to summon a departed lamb.

For some reason, all this springtime rambunctiousness made me think of Bernard Levin, late of the Times, one of the finest columnists ever to grace its pages. I remember him once writing a glorious article on the rights of spring, though its detail escapes me. But, thinking of gangs and Levin got me to recall a time shortly after I joined the oil major back in the mid-Seventies.

A good friend, Simon and I were hired more or less simultaneously, and I’m going to have to be very careful here, because the boss who hired us has been known to read this blog, and it may not be too late for retribution! I had just returned from my seminal lesson in Bristol. I weighed about 100lbs (45kg, 7st) having lost a lot of weight while desperately looking for a job. Meanwhile, Simon, brilliantly educated at Harrow and Oxford, had stuck out his thumb in London and hitch-hiked to Cape Town, where he arrived with malaria, dysentery and just about every other tropical disease one could think of. The boss hired both of us, clearly believing it would take two of us to perform one man’s work.

Contrary to our expectations, we really enjoyed the work and especially the camaraderie. Simon, never a wall-flower, used to read circulated British newspapers, especially the Guardian and the Times. It was of course a time of great industrial unrest in Britain, with the unions constantly up in arms and Levin would often write tongue-in-cheek articles about the state of industrial relations. All of a sudden, in our large open-plan office, a cry would erupt, “Bruthers, wot ‘bout ‘t workers?” followed by some apposite comment and ribald laughter. Simon would then read out the Levin article, confusing all the locals, but convulsing us insiders in laughter. Of course, in no time, I became “Bruther Kevin” and Simon was of course “Bruther Simon”. I had graduated from “Comrade” to “Bruther”.

But the next problem was; how to address the boss? It didn’t take Simon long. The boss became “Big Bruther”, and so he remained till the day they had both left. To this day, Simon and I communicate by email only as members of the brutherhood, as in “Dear Bruther…… Regards, Your Bruther”. And so it will be until we cease communicating.

As I walked along looking at those lamb gangs learning how to behave with each other, I thought about how so many of the affiliations and affectations that one learns as a young person stay with one for life. There is something very precious about those formative years. It seems to me that if one learns to be happy then, tragedies aside, one will always be happy, but maybe that is too simplistic.

Meanwhile today was another gruelling day. It was a procession of vertical climbs and descents the like of which I have never experienced before. For those of you who know it, today was like climbing Table Mountain and descending it 1.5 times! After the first of my descents, I pulled a muscle in my right thigh, because I had been trying to favour the shin below. Things went from bad to worse and by half-way, I was really just hobbling. I met an experienced walker who told me that this is a common injury and it would be OK in the morning. At least tomorrow’s route is reasonably flat on the Montgomery Plains, but I was today very nearly at the end of my tether, and tomorrow I will be carrying my full pack again.

I am going to have to do some serious thinking, and not just about lambs and history, if I am to keep this show on the road….

Hardly Out of Welsh Knighton and I am in Shropshire. The border used to run through the river, but the river has moved, so the border is now south of the river!

The River Teme snaking backwards and forwards through the Teme Valley

Some of the 1 million sheep I have seen on this trip. They all politely got up and made way for me!

Not good to look at your map while moving in these parts!

More natural art: this time it is strange bark

Mum and very interested twins!

Blue hills as the bluebells precede my northwards direction!

At last the Montgomery Plain. By now, I could hardly walk!!

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Your correspondent caught in a mirror...