I slept my first night at the house this week. I brought a hoover to clear a space in the dust to lay my roll-mat and sleeping bag.

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The heating has been on fiercely hot to dry the floors and things out, so I opened every window in the house. When it was bearable I sat down to a packet of crisps with humous and a kit Kat. And a celebratory beer I had to open with a pair of scissors.

 I slept like the proverbial log between being woken at intervals  by the crying of a sheep.

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The next morning when I emerged to use the hateful portaloo (soon to be gone) I found out what it was. A soay lamb was trapped in some brambles. It took a pair of work gloves and a pair of scissors to free it. It all felt rather biblical.

Later, as I sat and drank a coffee from a dusty mug (taking care not to agitate the grounds in the bottom  as I’d forgotten the cafetiere) I heard a sheep’s cries again. The same lamb was stuck in a different bramble. And an adult soay sheep was stuck in a nearby bush. .

I freed them and returned to the house. Much later I repeated the excercise again wondering what that wretched lamb would do if I wasn’t around to sort it out.

I expect the lamb was wondering where I was when it was bleating pathetically all night to be freed.