Mother Of Invention

Sheep jokes aside, some blokes are just naturals when it comes to rearing an abandoned lamb.

- Greg Dixon

I do hope Michele reads this column. Frankly, as a very new mother, she desperately needs my advice and help, but, bizarrely, she keeps putting her fingers in her ears, yelling “la-la-la-la-laaa” and running away every time I go near her.

You see, another tiny, abandoned lamb arrived this week. Elizabeth Jane was just one day old when Miles the sheep farmer’s wife, Janet, delivered her to our door.

After the – how should I put this? – “unexpected” decision by our first healthy new lamb, the exceptionally clever and talented Xanthe, to choose me as her mother and not the honestly-quite-desperate Michele, I made sure to keep my obviously super-motherly person well away from little Elizabeth Jane while Michele made her layperson attempts to bond.

Naturally, with such extensive mothering experience, I thought it best I also mother Elizabeth Jane. But in truth, I couldn’t have put up with another bout of secretive sulking and furtive mewling like we had when I became Xanthe’s mum three weeks ago.