Toad Hall and the Old Medicine House look out over fields sloping down to Blackden Brook, where there are two fishing ponds.  Apart from a few fishermen and the occasional walker there’s not been much action over the winter, until the sheep, all pregnant ewes, arrived in January.  Despite their reputation for being stupid, sheep have distinct personalities and I was pleased to see them spread across the fields eating the fresh grass. But before long, I became anxious. Sheep started to gather at the cattle grid between the field and our garden. This had happened before. I waited, trying to decide whether they were loitering with intent, and whether I should shut the gate.  Were any of them Houdini’s daughters?

That pesky sheep first appeared six years ago.  She seemed to decide that the grass was greener on our side of the cattle grid and she would jump over the grid and into the garden, followed by her twin lambs. Sometimes I caught her in the act, but mostly I came upon her and her lambs eating our grass.

I found her gaze baleful, as if she considered me to be the intruder on her patch.  Chasing her out became more and more difficult.  We could drive her towards the opened snicket gate by the grid and then just when we thought she was going through, she skittered sideways and back into the garden.

Harry Houdini, the escapist, would have recognised her skills; so we named her Houdini.  All harmless entertainment until she developed a taste for the spring shoots of my roses.  She was banished. The gate was shut.   But were any of the ewes in the field her daughters?  Would they remember how to get into the garden?

I never did find out.  A few days later they were gone, taken to a field nearer to the farm and I was relieved. On two consecutive days I had watched, unable to move fast enough to stop what was happening, the same walker by the fishing ponds, letting dogs run loose, and the dogs chasing the pregnant ewes till they fled, moving like a murmuration of starlings, grouping and splitting and spilling across the fields. Pregnant ewes can miscarry if they are alarmed.  Letting the dogs run on the first day might have been a careless mistake, but not on the second.  No wonder some farmers secured their gates.