My knee is bung. The receptionist at the medical centre asked about the nature of my injury. I said I had been knocked down by my pet ram lamb. She expressed no surprise. In the country, accident by animal is a daily occurrence. I, however, was incredulous. I couldn’t believe I was making a doctor’s appointment after getting knocked down by a pet ram lamb. It was not a thing that in my former city-dwelling life I could have anticipated. The worst animal injury in the city might be tripping over your kid’s escaped guinea pig.
Who knew country life could be so dangerous? Anyone who has ever lived in the country: bulls gore, roosters go for you, geese are dangerous. A sheep dog might round you up and nip at your heels. But sheep? Sheep are gentle and peaceful creatures. Unless they are rams.
Reginald, my ram lamb, whom I adored and adore still, had no intention of just about killing me. His knocking me over was merely an expression of sheeply love. Or so I continue to believe.
The doctor wrote on my ACC claim form, “Rammed by a ram.” Which was a funny joke. My knee is not laughing.
I went for an X-ray. The X-rayist knew all about being rammed by a ram. Her pet ram had rammed her, too. But she’s tougher than this refugee from Auckland. She threw him to the ground and gave him what for. Alas, this did not stop him from again trying it on. He then went on what farmers call a “holiday”. A sheep does not return from a holiday.
Luckily for both Reginald and me, he will not be going on a holiday. He has gone back to Miles the sheep farmer’s farm, where he has been enrolled in a re-education camp. I’d go up the road to see how he’s progressing but I can’t walk.
The truck delivering the groceries to what has been renamed Slushy Places got stuck in the mud. Greg phoned our neighbour, who sent his schoolboy son over with a ute and a tow rope. The woman from the supermarket who had turned up to oversee the operation said: “Your parents did something right. They must be proud of you.” He’d been up since 4am milking cows, before going to school. His father is a farmer. His grandfather was a farmer. Of course he’s going to be a farmer.
He doesn’t moan about a bit of mud. We do. For months, we have been through the soggy, stinky, dispiriting mud. The cats wade through it. There are muddy footprints all over the carpet and the couches and the beds. A tip: do not import your white duvet covers from the city to the country. Can you get poo-brown-coloured duvet covers? I’m sure I had one once. In the 70s. There was a vogue for poo-brown home furnishings. Whatever happened to poo-brown shagpile carpets?
When I was a kid, we had a cocker spaniel called Brandy, who had a charming fetish for skidding along on his bum on the shagpile. These were less-than-hygienic times. At least, they were in our house. My mother refused to do housework. A poo-brown carpet might have been hideous but it didn’t show the stains. One of my myriad forms of rebellion was to become a clean freak. But you cannot be a clean freak and live in the country. I am looking at our entirely impractical cream carpets and wondering about the merits of poo-brown shagpile carpets.
There is joy beyond the mud. The hellebores are gloriously spirit-raising, with their white and pink freckled or deep-plum or limey-green flowers. There is a vase of fragrant daffodils on the kitchen table. The plum trees are blossoming, pure white, and starkly delicate on the old lichen-embraced boughs. The elderly pear orchard is putting out lime-green leaves, like tiny fairy lights. The cats and the sheep sense spring in the air. Today, Greg’s sheep, Xanthe, danced and waggled her tail, just the way she did when she arrived here at Slushy Places, as a day-old lamb, six years ago.
