...then along came the Cotswolds

So back to Stoneleigh and Weylode Windflower, (Windy, to her friends) who was certainly not black and white with handlebars. No, she was a much bigger, more solid sheep, with wonderful curly wool and a thick fringe of dreadlocks which hung above her large deep brown eyes. But what I really fell in love with was her white face, delicate dark nose and her turned up mouth which made her look as if she were smiling, rather like a dolphin…
Windy was a Cotswold Sheep, sometimes called The Cotswold Lion because of their wonderfully thick wool around their necks which looks just like a lion’s mane.

Brought to Britain by the Romans the Cotswolds have grazed our grass for many hundreds of years. Once there were thousands of them grazing the Cotswold Hills bringing prosperity to farmers and there their wool was traded around the world. By the late twentieth century they were facing extinction. Now there are about 1500 breeding ewes in the country - not many when you think that there are single flocks of commercial sheep which number several thousand. And as many of the Cotswold sheep are kept in the Cotswolds another outbreak of Foot and Mouth could return them to th ebrink of destruction. But that's too depressing to think of... now it's lambing time which means sleepless nights and worry and hours of sheep bleats....