Please may I park my goat here?

                                                                              Photo Karen Steel

Gigi seems to be going through a clingy stage.  Orphaned at birth, we have got through the first few weeks when we just had to hope she would take to the bottle, where we worried that the long birthing process (that proved too much for her twin and her mother) would have left her with insurmountable health problems.  Now it is clear she is a healthy, happy goat.  But she is a bit clingy.  Three times yesterday I had to physically separate her from different groups of visitors as, having latched on to them, she had followed them around the whole farm and finally ended up in the shop. And then, just as I was heading up the stairs in the house I heard her bleating behind me.  Shops and houses are no place for a goat - even one that walks to heel better than our dog, so I carried her out and tried to shut the back door.  But no sooner had I started to close it, than her little nose poked around the door edge. I tried carrying her further afield but she ran back to the house more quickly than I could.  It was becoming a very tiring game!
In the end, the only solution seemed to be to find someone who could take over as mum/entertainer.  And so it was that I found myself in the orchard asking a very nice lady, seated on a bench, if I could park my goat next to her.  She readily agreed and the deal was done.  She stroked and petted Gigi and I legged it back to the house, closed the door and was upstairs before Gigi realised what had happened.  In fact, all of us were delighted by the transaction - Gigi had an attentive audience and "Grandma" landed  the prize that her grandchild so desperately wanted to find.  "She is going to be so jealous" the lady said "She left me on the bench while she went to look for Gigi and yet I am the one that has ended up with her sitting on my lap!"