Transhumance comes to Blissford. Our agricultural correspondent was invited to Bracken cottage on Sunday morning to report on the first of what will become bi-annual movements of the flock (aka Toby and Topsy) from West Mudmer to East Mudmer, via the croquet lawn (isnt two a brace? -Ed). Blissfordians too numerous to mention individually had turned up to help, or perhaps more out of curiosity – Crocodile Chris recorded most of the event on camcorderfor those that missed live coverage. Moving two sheep 100 yards doesn’t sound either overly challenging or a great spectator sport … until you realise that there was no sheepdog and that none of the participants actually had any experience of moving sheep. Katherine de Bunch had brought a goat collar with authentic Swiss mountain bell, which sadly had to be rejected since it would barely fit Poppy let alone the sheep. Whilst Toby made the journey relatively easily, Topsy took six people and ropes round her hind legs and neck a good quarter of an hour to make the Journey. Just when a total success was about to be claimed, she ran off into her new pasture with the horse’s neck-rein still on her neck. By now a crew of eight were in the field trying to trap her to remove the rope, but she charged through them akin to Jona Lomu (perhaps she is a New Zealand Cross rather than a pure Dorset sheep) going through the England defence. A further fifteen minutes of taunting her would be captors until Henry ‘Dallaglio’ Richardson brought her down with an outstanding tackle to all four legs. Sadly, the camcorder had run out of tape seconds before, and those who were not there will just have to take our word for it.