My Legs Won't See The Light Of Day Now Until May!

Amanda Owen reveals the challenges of being a Yorkshire shepherdess in winter.

AMANDA OWEN’S first book “The Yorkshire Shepherdess” was an instant hit when it was published in 2014. After she’d caught the nation’s attention on the ITV show “The Dales”, readers were keen to hear the story of the woman who gave up city life to farm one of England’s most remote spots with eight children (now nine) in tow.

Amanda married Clive, himself a city boy, and the two took tenancy of Ravenseat, high in Swaledale, 50 miles from the nearest town.

Raising a family out there has been both challenging and idyllic, but they’ve never regretted the choices they made, even coming into the hardest time of year.

“November feels like it’s the beginning of the New Year because we’re gathering the sheep in. For the next five months it’s all about sheep every day, because we don’t really leave them alone now until the end of lambing time, end of May.”

Snow is a constant winter threat at Ravenseat. In Amanda’s new book, “A Year In The Life Of The Yorkshire Shepherdess”, she mentions that if it falls anywhere in the country, it’s going to fall in the Dales.

“People very much overlook the Yorkshire Dales as being extreme as it’s all rolling hills and very green, but actually once you get up on to the moors out towards the tops you can get some pretty severe weather conditions. We look at the weather forecast, see what it’s going to do in Scotland and then that’s us!”

The mist is a challenge on the hills, too, she tells me in her warm Yorkshire accent.