Sheep and bridges

If you take the path through the churchyard out of Kirkby Lonsdale that goes first past Ruskin's View and then the rugby club, then you will come to the Underley Estate. The first field, the one you enter into, is bisected by a stream that is crossed by this bridge. When they were small and we lived on the estate, my elder daughters used to play 'pooh sticks' here.

There is a flock of sheep that live in this field and most of them are nearly always to be found on the opposite side from where I took this photo. Dan and I walk though here two or three times a week and as we are approaching through the woods we sometimes speculate how may sheep will be on the far side. Sometimes there are none at all. 

We also wonder whether the sheep understand the bridge. Even when it's low, we've never seen a sheep walk through the stream. But do they understand that to get from one side of the stream to the other, they need to walk up to the bridge?

I ran this route before work, this morning, and as I came into the field there was a sheep just upstream from the bridge on one side and two lambs on the other, all baaing plaintively at one another. I made a mental note to tell Dan about this but felt bad running on and leaving this domestic distress unresolved, so I ran 'round behind the lambs and with a few handclaps coaxed them up to the bridge, which they then crossed to be reunited with their mum. 

This afternoon, Dan went for a walk with his friend, Louie, up to the cairn on the top of Brownthwaite, so I did this route again but in reverse, so that I could grab this photo. (Doing it in reverse was not necessary for the photo, of course, but I don't like doing the same route twice in one day.)

I was fine that Dan had gone off to walk with his friend, today - it was like a little metaphor for parenting - but I think he felt bad and in the evening he suggested we walk around to Booths just to get a walk in together. What a lovely fellow he is. 

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-9.8 kgs
Reading: 'Underland' by Robert Macfarlane