I Wonder if Sheep Get Hot Flushes

There's a big focus on sheep in the press at the moment.  Reporter, George Monbiot, wrote a piece in the Guardian at the beginning of January about how we need to plant trees on hills to protect lowlands from flooding.  It was a very well written and convincing article that made a lot of sense to me and, it seems many other people.  Even the Politicians have started to consider the idea and George went on Countryfile to explain his position.
(read it here: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/13/flooding-public-spending-britain-europe-policies-homes )


Unfortunately, George has a problem with Sheep.  I wouldn't be putting it too strongly if I said he hates them.  His article 'Sheepwrecked' starts with the line, "How Britain has been shagged by the white plague."  This country has a very complicated relationship with sheep.  We like them; they are white and fluffy and cute looking; we pay farmers huge subsidies to grow them; we refer to them all through our Biblical texts, and sing nursery rhymes about them. We eat the baby ones but not the adults, don't drink the milk but make clothes from their wool.  In my opinion, sheep are OK. I like knitting, eating lamb and I'd rather walk through a field of sheep than a field of cows any day.  Now, Farmers and other people are very upset with Mr Monbiot.  He's getting a lot of negative comments on Twitter (although as far as I can see no rape or death threats - lucky he's not a woman).  The Welsh Daily Post is running with the headline, "Taking Sheep from Uplands Social Genocide."  I'm sure I'm very ill informed and naive on the matter but I can't help wondering what sheep have against trees.  Surely the two are not mutually exclusive. With a few trees the ground would be more solid and less likely to be trampled into mush by these white woolly menaces that George Monbiot is so cross with.

Whilst, I am interested in the sheep issue, my attention is rather firmly set on my own body temperature at the moment.  Today a Sky engineer called to fix the satellite box in the bedroom.  It had stopped playing Sky Sports reliably, which is no good if I am to continue to send the Long Suffering Husband to his bedroom to watch football.  Having run upstairs with a pen for him, I launched into the bedroom and was immediately overcome by a rising sense of warmth.  I can only imagine how it looked to him to have a mad woman run into the bedroom and strip off her jumper!

I am at the age where, my sudden bursts of warmth are treated with pity, concern and advice on which drugs help the best.  I don't really mind being occasionally warm.  It's new for me and it's good to experience new things.

So, I started to wonder if these sheep; huge communities of females with oestrogen fluctuation, experience hot flushes.  If they do then they can't suddenly take their woolly jumpers off, or fan themselves with whatever piece of paper is closest to hand.  They might appreciate the odd tree or two to cool down under.

Living with a strop-monster

Any parent will tell you that balancing your child's moods with your own can be extremely stressful at times.  You can guarantee your toddler will throw himself on the floor of the supermarket and kick and scream on the day when you have been up all night or your cat has just died.  The day when you are feeling on top of the world, dressed beautifully, with hair done and make up on is the day your toddler also behaves beautifully.  And that just isn't fair.  You could cope with anything on that day.


I'm sad to say, though, that it just doesn't get any better.  You always hope they will grow out of the 'phase' they are in and they do.  Unfortunately, it's just as you've worked out how to deal with that 'phase' and they move into something new, that you have absolutely no idea about.

Teenagers can be particularly tricky.  They start to have their own opinions and voice them.  If you argue with them they are always right (even when they're not) and even worse sometimes they are right and you end up looking stupid.  They have more stress in their lives (living out their teachers stressful targets) than anyone should have to cope with and they have hormones doing really weird things to their bodies.

A colleague told me today that her daughter once said to her, "I DO have hormones, you know!", to which my colleague snapped, "So do I!"  And although, it is possible to be sympathetic about a teenage girls hormones it can be quite difficult when you are rapidly approaching 50 and your hormones seem to be having a private party of their own.

This week I have 2 teenagers in the school play, one who is doing A levels and dealing with University offers or rejections.  That might be quite stressful but it's Christmas and I am a music teacher with no voice and a very sore throat.

With both children out my long suffering husband wondered what we might do with our evening.  It's quite sad but we settled on cleaning out a cupboard and tidying the bookshelf.  We know how to live!