One of my most memorable ‘magical moments’ of 2007 happened last springtime.
From November to May each year I rent a converted stable block in a very small village on the edge of the Cotswold escarpment. The village comprises of 1 ancient Saxon church (St Faith’s), a couple of cottages a herb garden and my stable block. I am also surrounded by countryside and right next to an ancient footpath leading down into the valley to the ruins of an ancient monastery that was once a significant site of medieval pilgrimage. I love living here each year and use this time to reflect and re-energise myself.
My magic moment happened when my daughters came to visit one weekend last springtime to help with the lambing. This year was our first experience of lambing and I and they were captivated and amazed by the miracle of new life. The girls became experts at spotting new arrivals, resuscitating lambs that’d had difficult births, capturing runaways, feeding and watering exhausted mothers and herding new families from the birthing barns to the paddocks. But the most enjoyable by far was looking after the orphans. It wasn’t long before each orphan had been named by my daughters, there was Panda, Spotsie, Tadpole & Newt and many others, but there was one in particular that made that springtime a magical moment for me and he was named Bambi. Bambi’s mother had unfortunately died giving birth to him and he was weak. He couldn’t stand and seemed destined to a short life lying in the corner of the barn being hand reared.
From November to May each year I rent a converted stable block in a very small village on the edge of the Cotswold escarpment. The village comprises of 1 ancient Saxon church (St Faith’s), a couple of cottages a herb garden and my stable block. I am also surrounded by countryside and right next to an ancient footpath leading down into the valley to the ruins of an ancient monastery that was once a significant site of medieval pilgrimage. I love living here each year and use this time to reflect and re-energise myself.
My magic moment happened when my daughters came to visit one weekend last springtime to help with the lambing. This year was our first experience of lambing and I and they were captivated and amazed by the miracle of new life. The girls became experts at spotting new arrivals, resuscitating lambs that’d had difficult births, capturing runaways, feeding and watering exhausted mothers and herding new families from the birthing barns to the paddocks. But the most enjoyable by far was looking after the orphans. It wasn’t long before each orphan had been named by my daughters, there was Panda, Spotsie, Tadpole & Newt and many others, but there was one in particular that made that springtime a magical moment for me and he was named Bambi. Bambi’s mother had unfortunately died giving birth to him and he was weak. He couldn’t stand and seemed destined to a short life lying in the corner of the barn being hand reared.
My eldest daughters took turns to bottle feed Bambi and he soon became the favourite of my eldest daughter Sophie who would sit with him for hours. One afternoon I was sitting in the garden watching Molly my youngest, skipping around the meadow being followed by Panda, Spotsie, Tadpole & Newt I heard Sophie urgently call me from the barn. I ran as quickly as I could fearful that she had fallen or hurt herself in some way. When I arrived Sophie was standing there with a huge smile of satisfaction on her face and tears running down her cheeks. ‘Look’ she said, and as she began to walk around the barn, little Bambi struggled to his very wobbly legs, bleated and stumbled after her. Sophie, unknown to any of us had been patiently teaching Bambi how to stand and eventually walk. It had taken hours of patience, determination and love for this little creature and she had succeeded. It was only a few days later that I found myself sitting in my garden watching my beautiful daughters running around the meadow with bottles of milk being pursued by very energetic newborns and a still very small, but equally energetic Bambi stumbling along behind. A very magical moment indeed!
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