Edge Hill University students ‘gob-smacked’

I sat down in my long dress, fastened my bells and marraccas onto my ankles, placed the rings with wooden beads on my fingers and started to play a Persian Dance on the 4 sets of strings that make up my special harp and watched for the reaction  …  It was a sophisticated cocktail party at Edge Hill University and most of the guests were in long dresses or Saris.  There were quite a few students in attendance as the main performance that evening was of Indian Classical Dance.   I got my reaction … phew … I still love to see the delight and surprise on people’s faces as they hear me for the first time.  I hear the comments ‘it’s like a whole orchestra in one, I’ve never heard anything like it’ .   

Typical day for me … someone knocked on the door to say our sheep were wrecking someone’s garden in the village (oh no, we thought, this usually means handing out bottles of wine to the owners).   This took over an hour to sort out because even though all our sheep were counted in the field the man was absolutely convinced these sheep had something to do with us and wouldn’t be pacified until Dave’s best sheep dog, Meg, had rounded them all up.  We grabbed one, got the number off its ear tag and published it on the village website and hey-presto, the sheep disappeared from the field sometime in the afternoon.  The reason we did not notice is that whilst eating lunch we looked up and past the window floated two massive shire horses.   Amazing gentle giants – in the garden.   We grabbed some rope and Dave reached up to their necks – until you stand underneath these animals you just don’t realise how massive they are – I was just a little scared.    Just as he reached up a very ‘out of puff’ lady appeared.   She had run for nearly 2 miles chasing these two escapees.

The goat had got himself up on the roof of his little shed and was laid watching two rabbits when I took his bucket of peelings.  My chicks had escaped through the smallest of holes in their pen and had to be rounded up and the hens had laid eggs in the cat’s bed and under the hedge so I had to check everywhere before I could go in and change.    I had exactly ten minutes to get make-up and long dress on and load the car ready to drive for a couple of hours up the M65.