Rob and Richard Belcher had a particularly jovial Saturday afternoon and I managed to be a little more circumspect. I had had a busy week and was looking forward to having a quiet night in with the first Mrs Price. We settled down to watch a soppy film, which turned out to be pretty crappy, and half way through the ‘phone went.

‘Come quickly, the pig has started farrowing’ which means having babies to you and me.

We rushed round to Mill house and there was Christine Belcher saying

‘I’m so pleased you’ve come, Robs so drunk and the sow has already had him over’.

Rob was indeed swaying in the breeze, though in fact there wasn’t any, and the sow was popping little oinkers out with regular monotony, accompanies by grunts and sighs. Ann was enamoured, Rob was a nuisance and I hadn’t enough fingers. She actually gave birth to 18 piglets in the space of two hours. EIGHTEEN! Crikey. They were definitely saddlebacks which is just as well as it said Saddleback on the pot of semen that I had inseminated her with. I had been slightly worried that one of her offspring had manged to climb up and do the job better than me, but fortunately not!

There was great satisfaction all round and we rolled off back to a relatively early bed, happy in the knowledge that we had managed to come full cycle with the little critters in somewhat under a year. Not bad going for amateurs.

On Saturday, Vicki and I discussed the arrangements for a wake that was to be held at The Inn on Monday morning and we were pretty confident that we had it all sorted. Our Sancerre wine tasting lunch was a great success and Sunday turned into a pretty good Fathers Day. Shame Jenson Button didn’t win the Silverstone Grand Prix but hey, he got pints and is still in the lead by a country mile.

Sow and piglets were doing well on Monday morning but I couldn’t find the Gilt (female pig that hasn’t had piglets) that was due to make sausages sometime soon. I walked a round the woods, concerned that something had happened to her and sure enough, I spotted a corpse in the undergrowth. However, the corpse was not only breathing but also grunting and heaving as only pigs can when in labour. Oh my, she IS in pig after all. I dashed to The Inn and made a few calls. Sorry Vicki, can’t help with the funeral, I have pigs to help! Vicki leapt to the cause, called Tonya in and I mimicked James Herriott for the rest of the morning.

Anyhow, it is now 5.05 and the wee Gilt, which I guess is now technically a sow, has four beautiful piglets, mother and piglets doing fine. The other sow and her brood are also doing fine. The ageing Aunt has also been successfully planted and all at the wake were very happy, so all in all a pretty good few days. Two farrowings and a funeral, perfect!