My farmer tan ends at the wellies!
THIS week I have begun to develop a classic farmer’s tan.
That’s a bronzed skin from elbows to hands where my sleeves have been rolled up and a leg tan line that stops at the top of my wellies.
Everything below that is as pasty (and as hairy) as usual.
You see, I’ve been wearing a skirt – quite rare, as trousers are a must when working in the sheep pens amid horns at just the right height to inflict the maximum pain and injury upon bare legs.
Luckily I’ve been on mothering-up duties. Standing with Kate the sheepdog in the fields and sorting which lambs belong to which yows, then sending them into the pens ready for Clive to tag and record the pedigrees.
Clemmy, Annas and Nancy dart here and there and occasionally find themselves in just the right place to turn the sheep into the pens.
More often than not, though, they have been distracted by something more interesting, such as the marking pot.
They were my little angels with dirty faces having found the tin full of an unctuous, tar-like substance that we carefully apply with a stick to the sheep’s fleece to identify it as belonging to us.
I wasn’t best pleased when I saw Nancy had daubed it over her face and sundress. Clemmy, too, was covered.
And Annas had washed off the evidence in the sink but left smears and handprints everywhere she’d been.