Under the knife

I was making the phone call I had been putting off making.

- MICHELE HEWITSON

I said: “She has to have her ear cut off. Please make sure you write down ‘ear’ and not ‘leg’.” I was talking to the receptionist at the vet’s clinic. She laughed at this pathetic attempt at bravado and said: “Does she have a name, or is she just ‘sheep’?”

Her name is Elizabeth Jane, and she arrived here at Lush Places four years ago, in September, the day before my birthday. She was one day old. Her sheep mother, who must be mentally defective, had rejected her. She was perfect.

Another vet once said to us: “It is very easy to fall in love with lambs.” It is their gambolling and the wagging tails, and the sheer, selfish satisfaction of unconditional love returned – although the four bottles of milk you offer each day might have something to do with this. But you can pretend that all of that unbounded adoration is for you alone.