In Which The Writer Ponders More Ideas For Her Post-Teaching Career

I can't remember which day it was this week when I came home pooped and had to lie prone on the living room carpet for half an hour and stare at the ceiling just to get over the day, but whatever day it was I caught the tail end of 'The Hairy Bikers' on TV.

Now, I like the Hairy Bikers. I like their joie de vivre when it comes to food; I like the way they will cook anything and try anything, and bake cakes in odd places like half way up a mountain on a camping stove. And I like the fact they have scant regard for the Healthy Eating Police. As such, I suspect they will both live until they are ninety something, and around the time of their demise, scientists will discover that, actually, butter has health giving properties to arteries because the fat keeps them supply and smooth-running. Or something.

Anyway, I caught the tail-end of the programme. They were in Wales. I'm still drawn to Wales when it comes to finding a final settling place for the Manor. I recently had a flirt with Suffolk, because my friend Janet found a sweet little cottage there with a fair old dollop of garden, which she forwarded me the details for.

But the Hairy Bikers were in Wales - Camarthenshire, to be precise, which is where we have been centering our searches. And they visited a goat farmer, who kept a herd especially for the purpose of making cheese. I like goat cheese. I don't like sheep cheese. I tried some sheep cheese when we were on holiday and, quite frankly, I'd rather eat washing up liquid. But goat cheese is good. And this lady and her husband had moved from Kent because 'there's more grass in Wales.'

'I'm not surprised,' I said to the TV, because I am prone to talk to it when there's no-one else in the house. 'After John Prescott's attempts to concrete over the entire green belt of Kent, I'm amazed we've got even a tussock left here to share amongst ourselves.'

But the verdant pasture in Wales is due, of course, to the ample rain. In fact, most of my memories of Wales are rain-sodden, but I don't mind that because at least it's warm rain, unlike say Scotland, which is rain-sodden but cold. I can do wet and warm, but not wet and cold.

And, as every potential self-sufficiencee knows, the most important element you need if you are going to keep chickens and goats and sheep and cows and the such-like, is grass. And plenty of it. And, of course, the rain helps with the veggie growing, even more important when one is a vegetarian.

I've been vegetarian for over two months now! Which brings me to a potential problem vis a vis keeping goats for making cheese. Because in order to produce milk to make cheese, mummy goats need to have baby goats. Which is okay if the baby goats are baby girl goats because then they can go on to produce milk themselves. But what about the boy goats? Well, you keep two or three for breeding purposes (hence the phrase 'You old goat'), but the rest of the baby boy goats are surplus to requirements and what happens to them? They often get destroyed within minutes of being born. What a life. No life...

...unless you have an outlet for turning them into goat meat. Which is very good, so I've heard. Lean, tasty and versatile. But this is irrelevant information for us vegetarian types. You see, I stand by my feeling that, no matter how good a life you give an animal before you slaughter it for food, no matter how you dress the notion up with words like 'compassion' and 'respect', you are still going to finish off a life by electrocuting it, and then slitting its throat.

Where's the respect in that?

Maybe I've been reading too much about the art of Zen Buddhism recently? I don't know...

Anyway, the boy goat thing could be a potential problem.

But I like goats. There is something endearing about them. And this is where part of my Post-Teaching Career Plan comes into play. A few miles up the road, on the outskirts of the village where I grew up, there is a palce called the Buttercup Goat Sanctuary, a registered charity where they take in abandoned goats of any age, shape or size. And sometimes they have opwn days, and they ask for people to volunteer to look after the goats, because what started several years ago as a small concern has turned into some goatopolis with many, many, MANY residents.

I am going to see if they want a hand from me. I'll have time to spare. And I can learn about the intricacies of goat keeping at the same time.

Just to see if I like them as much as I think I do!