I've been thinking about my childhood goat. She looked a bit like this:
She. Rocked. She was convinced that her rightful place was in our house, and dedicated her life to proving this to us. You couldn't open a downstairs window without cowering in case she jumped through it. If they were all shut, she would prop herself up against one and stare through it in that unsettling way goats do. Like a High Court Judge.
When she got bored with that, she used to try and break into the pub next door. She made it into the bar once. Actually, onto the bar. Being Wales, nobody really noticed, in fact she got a few phone numbers.
She once gorged herself on a sack of goat nuts, and spent the entire next day lying prostrate outside her kennel (yes, she slept in a dog kennel) looking like a snake that had swallowed a donkey. We had to tie her up, because she kept trying to get back in the shed and finish off the sack.
When she sneezed, it sounded like she was going to explode. My grandad lived in a caravan at the time (don't ask. Please. Just don't) and she'd often clamber in there to sit with him and watch Pobl y Cwm. They may even have enjoyed the odd smoke together. She would sneeze and he would cough, it was lucky he had the subtitles on.
I'm going all misty eyed. She was so much fun. RIP Shrub aka Houdini, aka 'that thing in the garden'. May your cud forever be chewy and your bleat always indignant.













