sharing and shearing

‘G’day Sheila, I’m Bruce!’, said the man with corks in his hat and a kangaroo tattooed on his forehead, by way of introduction. ‘Hello’, I said, returning the greeting, 'and where are you from?’ Bruce put down his wobble board. ‘I’m from the Northern Territory, Sheila’, he explained. ‘Oh gosh!’ I said, ‘Do you live near wife in the north then?’. He shook his head. 'I think that’s Northumberland’, he corrected me. ‘Northern Territory is down in the southern hemisphere!’ I wondered why it was prefixed by Northern if that was the case but then summised that perhaps Northern was not simply a geographical term but rather a name given to the area of any country where the inhabitants preferred the company of sheep to that of people. ‘So, the farmer tells me you wanted to write about a sheep being shorn to appear as if you’re an agricultural worker doing seasonal and insecure work for long hours and earning minimum wage whilst living in a caravan in the farmyard because you can’t afford a house in your home village’. I nodded. ‘Rather!’ I replied. ‘Fair dinkum’, said Bruce, ‘First I need to calm the sheep down, this one’s a little bit cranky’, and with that he wrestled the sheep to the ground, where they both rolled over several times in a fierce struggle. ‘You might want to stand back love’, said Bruce, grabbing the ewe in an armlock, this could get ugly'. I backed away and bumped into the farmer who had come out from the farm house. ‘Fancy a cuppa pet?’ said the farmer. ‘He’ll be a couple of hours yet with that one’. I nodded and we both made our way back across the field. ‘We have to fleece them so they don’t fall over, because then they can’t get up again’, explained the farmer. We came to a halt. ‘Like this one’, He said, looking down on the ground. ‘Damn ramblers’, he said, prodding the figure lying on it’s back, unable to get up due to the weight of it’s rucksack, with his stick. ‘Is it male or female?’ I asked. ‘hard to tell’ said the farmer. ‘I think they’re a gender on their own, like a mule, that’s why they like carrying around all that stuff’. I thought for a moment ‘How do you think it ended up on it's back like that?’ I asked. ‘Probably met Bruce’, said the farmer. ‘When backpackers meet an Australian they play dead, it’s a kind of defence mechanism’, he explained. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘what will you do?’ The farmer pointed his shotgun at the rambler’s chest. ‘Best just to put ’em out of their misery, same as you would with a sheep’, he said. ‘Grab that mate’, he told the rambler, who took hold of the barrel as the farmer pulled him up. ‘Fancy a cuppa at the farmhouse’ he asked the rambler. ‘Oh super’, said the rambler’, newly stumbling on two feet. ‘Cream teas only £50’, the farmer told our new friend ‘Oh lovely!’, was the reply. I looked back at Bruce, who was trying to provoke the sheep into attacking him by dangling a steak just out of reach whilst poking it with a stick. The sheep was still in full possession of all it's wool but at least someone was going to get fleeced today, I thought, following the rambler into the farmhouse kitchen, and looking forward to a piece of Crocodile Dundee cake.

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