The Good Life
At Lush Places, the rescue lambs and their carers are out to lunch.
My latest income-generating scheme here at Lush Places is to open a day-care centre for lambs. This will be run in conjunction with the petting zoo (under construction, still) and will, of course, be called Lush Places Lambie Day Care.
I believe this latest scheme will be a sure-fire money-spinner. If one owns what is known as a
“lifestyle block”, one must, apparently, “monetise” one’s lifestyle block. We were informed of this by a visitor from Auckland. Aucklanders appear to be obsessed with monetising their lifestyle blocks, otherwise known as villas in Grey Lynn, by turning them into Airbnbs, sometimes at vast and irretrievable expense. I think my idea of a day-care centre for lambs is a much cannier proposition because, for one thing, lambs don’t move into your house and throw parties and trash the place.
We live in a town where one of the local vets offers consultations for “rescue lambs” for a tenner. So, there must be lots of people in town who have rescue lambs and who would pay at least a tenner for them to be looked after during the day. We will offer companionship, toys (stuffed sheep), and plenty of hearty exercise on the lawn.
We are doing a trial run by looking after Jimmy every weekday morning while his mama, Charlotte the shepherdess, is at work up the road at Miles the sheep farmer’s home farm. Jimmy is her crippled lamb and is coming along in hops and bounds; he can now manage to go up and down steps.
Charlotte took Jimmy to the hairdresser’s the other day. It was her hair that was being cut but I suggested that when Jimmy needs shearing, she might take him to the same hospitable salon. He, being curly all over, doesn’t require a perm but he might suit highlights.
We all took Jimmy out to lunch last Sunday. We went to our favourite lunch place, which will go unnamed because it is probably a breach of what the Daily Mail likes to sneeringly call “elf and safety”. I did phone the charming owner, B, to ask for permission to smuggle a lamb in. She said: “I know nothing. I see nothing.” Charlotte arrived with Jimmy in a wine box, disguised as a floral arrangement. B gave the clandestine operation a code name. She said: “Have you got the toy?” She took a photo of the toy to send to her daughter. We had a plan in place to cover any baaing. If Jimmy baaed, I would then baa and pretend I was doing my sheep impersonations. I would have looked quite mad but it is quite mad to take a sheep out to Sunday lunch, so what the hell.
I didn’t have to do my sheep impersonation. Jimmy was very good and quiet, if not entirely effectively disguised. A woman walked past our table, in the depths of the restaurant, to go to the loo. She did a double-take, as might anyone seeing a lamb, disguised as a floral arrangement, out to lunch on a Sunday afternoon. On her way back, she stopped to pat the floral arrangement. She said: “You can’t get attached to them because then you can’t eat them.”
If anyone had told me, two years ago, that I would be spending my time looking after a crippled lamb five mornings a week, I would have told them they were off their rocker. Now, I can’t think of any nicer way to spend five mornings a week. It is also very nice to live in a town where you can take a lamb in a wine box out for Sunday lunch.
Charlotte arrived with Jimmy the lamb in a wine box, disguised as a floral arrangement.