International Sheep Rescue

Yesterday evening I had several phone calls regarding a sheep that was trapped on a ledge somewhere up a mountain. Since everyone knows about my rock climbing habit I sometimes get calls like this and as a responsible member of the community feel the duty to respond. Actualy this is one of those rare opportunities when I don't feel like the helpless foreign idiot and can actually use my skills to help someone. So early this morning I got picked up by the owner of the sheep in question and was driven up into the hills. After an hour and a half walking there it was stood on a ledge to the left of a gulley. It's offspring was also there, on the other side of the gulley, the two could not reach each other. If the lamb had any sense (they don't generally) it could have walked off to the left and walked round to meet it's mum. Anyway I set off climbing up vertical grass, slippy loose rock and mossy ledges to fix a rope to a bush/tree above the sheep. The idea was to abseil between mum and child and force each to go down in different directions. As I was fixing the rope the lamb made my job easier by trying to run across a vertical wall, as anyone who has tried this will testify it's not possible (even though Tony Hawks does it on X Box). Unfortunately the lamb died, I felt quite upset about it, seemed such a shame. Strange really since if saved the lamb would have been sent to the slaughter house. At least then it would have been eaten. Probably being eaten by Eagles right now. Anyway to cut a long story short after a bit of swinging on the end of the rope managed to lower mum to safety. I guess she wasn't so happy about Larry though.