Lambing, and the importance of caring for the little runty ones

Ms Melancholy is very good with the little, tiny, weeny lambs who don't know how to feed. She has endless patience with them, as do the farmers in our village who we're helping out during lambing.

Funnily enough it hasn't put us off eating lamb, though we have made a family decision recently - initiated by Master Melancholy - to be much more strict about the welfare and environmental impacts of the meat, eggs and milk we buy.  We'd been doing it *mostly* but now it's for real. Badger could not have ham this week because we have not yet found a source of free range ham - free range local bacon, yes, but not ham.

These two things strike me as being not unconnected to the stories in today's news about the appalling way in which our - yes OUR, we own it, we pay for it, it belongs to all of us - National Health Service fails people with learning disabilities.

Here's the thing: it is in all of our interests to make sure that people with disabilities, children and animals in our society are treated with the utmost respect and care. This is a reflection of the true measure of survival protection which our society affords. A hospital service which will only take care of you if you are able to stand up for yourself is barely worth having. When you need it most, when you are unconscious or without voice, delirious with pain or medication, or just too sick to know what is going on, it is most likely to let you down.

A society which respects the needs of the people who are least able to express them will always be in a better position to catch you when you fall. And one day we all will - it's about the only guarantee we all have in life.

Like most folk, my own survival depends largely upon a careful balance of distraction and denial. Disturbing this balance has potentially unintended consequences, such is the depth and breadth of stuff I am carefully ignoring. And something tells me it is all connected. Don't think about the conditions the chicken in your sandwich lived in, don't think about the kids who just wish they had any kind of sandwich at all (other than to justify eating this sandwich, because it would be criminal to waste it when others are hungry...), don't think about the people who are starving to death in our own hospitals because they're unable to speak up, don't think about the fact that we're all spending money on crap while our hospitals struggle and fall to pieces... 

Where do we begin?

I think we begin with the little ones. And I think it has to be a concrete experience. And I think we could do worse than to get our major politicians down to the Yorkshire Dales to do a bit of lambing.

On the 15th day of November my neighbours gave to me...

... one Chocolate Orange and a brace of pheasants for our tea.

*ends singing*

At 6pm Badger and I are taking said brace of pheasants down to the local pub where the lovely and eccentric landlord (who used to produce Thomas the Tank Engine) will give us a demonstration of how to make them eatable. For they are not, yet. They are just hanging by the front door just as they were when they arrived. Heads, feathers, etc.

This brings us to a dilemma. We happen to live somewhere that offers a plentiful supply of free meat most of the year round. The local farmers have said we can have rabbits for free, provided we do all the yukky bits for ourselves. 

Free range? *check*

Zero food miles? *check*

No carbon footprint? *check*

Low cholesterol? *check*

Cute snuffly noses and floppy ears? *check*

After much discussion we have concluded that if we aren't prepared to eat the local, free meat offered to us then we probably shouldn't eat meat at all. And, having been veggie and also done the almost-veggie-but-I-eat-fish thing, I don't want to give up meat again. We do eat veggie at least half the time, and we only buy free range meat, but that's as far as it goes.

Now, proper veggies I can respect. My little sis hasn't eaten animal bits for a long time and is very serious about it. Fishy-tarians I can also dig - there is something different about fishes, they don't have limbic systems and raise their young like other mammals... and we don't rear them in horrible battery farms. (Oh ... actually we do, but we pretend not to and can choose to buy fish responsibly).

But, it turns out that I might just be a dont-make-me-think-about-it-etarian. Which sounds to me like a synonym for 'hypocrite'. So, I searched YouTube for a video that might instruct me how to prepare a pheasant, in the hope that I might be de-sensitised by the time we go for our lesson this evening. And, OMG it's horrific. Badger and I are in pieces.

Not the blood and guts... that wasn't too bad actually.

No, much worse than that.

The video soundtrack is "You're beautiful" by James Blunt.

Some people are just twisted.

A cardio-cappucino, Thalgomince with spaghetti and a frigi-thalgo wrap for desert please ...

When Badger came back from scouting our new gym and described the cardio equipment as 'giant coffee machines' I had to wonder what kind of Badgerism this was : Type A Badgerisms involve saying exactly what she means, where Type B Badgerisms require some sort of alternative-reality filter in order to interpret the intended terminology.

In this case it was a perfectly observed Type A. The running, rowing and cross training machines are beautifully sculpted in matt black plastic and shinier-than-our-new-dualit-toaster chrome. It's a brilliant incentive: one more mile and you can have a frothy coffee.

Skipping past that weighty stuff and into the changing rooms, it seems that the cardio room isn't the only place offering refreshments. The spa is offering Thalgomince (LC24), with the following tasty description: 

This rich and creamy texture envelops the skin in a real "SLIMMING patch." This new technology specially designed for continuous diffusion will act throughout the day to empty the adipocytes and prevent the storage of fat. As if the tissue were being "re-educated", the adipocytes become cells with a "non-storage" structure once again. The ideal partner* for keeping your figure free from unsightly bulges.

Great! We'll have ours with spaghetti. And a couple of Frigi-thalgo wraps whilst you're at it:

A cold wrap treatment, designed to control excess fluid in the hip, leg and thigh areas. Good for attacking cellulite and fluid retention, and provides relief for tired legs. The coldness of the wrap stimulates circulatory changes and might be ideal for kick-starting a diet.

Just what I fancy ... does it come with chocolate sprinkles? Oh, and could you bear to do another couple of strokes on the rowing machine - I quite fancy an Americano ...

* The other half of the partnership being Doctor Gillian McKeith with a loud hailer, screaming "Step away from the pie, you're fucking enormous!"