the goat trial

Mini-B arrived at 7 o'clock this morning in his van and started to unload two goats - a mother and her kid, he told me. I rushed out in my nightie and wellies and was leading the goats across the road to the garden when a truck-load of workmen passed, hooting and gesticulating wildly. I thought they were friends of Mini-B's until he informed me that the back of my nightie was tucked into my pants! I tied the goats up near the rose bushes and we went inside for a coup de blanc.

Later in the morning when I went to check on them I discovered that they'd practically stripped my rose bushes bare so I tied them up under the ash tree and went to google "how to milk a goat". The "Teddington Cheese Wire" recommends as follows:

"When milking the goat you can easily disturb the hair on its belly, so the hair under the udder should be clipped and brushed to remove hair and dirt. Just before milking, when your goat is tied up and happily eating, her udder and hind quarters need to be wiped down with a damp sponge and a small amount of udder cream should be put on the teats and hands. It may be a good idea to practice the milking technique with the finger of an old rubber glove with a pin-hole in the tip."

BB went off in search of clippers, udder cream and an old rubber glove, and returned, resourceful as ever, with my Babyliss lady shaver, a jar of vaseline and a préservatif. Whilst I was sitting on the front-door step practising squirting milk out of the prophylactic, a couple of pesky Jehovah's Witnesses went past on their bicycles and were so busy staring at me that they missed the turn and rolled into the ditch.