Oxford Down sheep stare with intelligent gazes, at the Chilterns Open Air Museum.
These are the smartest sheep I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot since moving to the Ewe Capital of the World, i.e. Rural England. They are called Oxford Down sheep, on account I believe of their Oxford education.
The dog and I were walking at the Chilterns Open Air Museum a couple of weekends ago, and when these two saw us they immediately put down the treatise they were reading on EU regulations on foot-and-mouth disease and came to the fence. They stared at the antics of the dog with piercing gazes. I overheard snippits of their discussion, on "canine-human bonding rituals" and "bronze age footwear," but I confess most of it was over my head.
No cute and cuddly lambs, these. Which reminds me, fellow Brit blogger Shane has written a hymn about lambs. ("God is strange, and mysterious, and might be a wo-man with righteous shoes-") I would go to church just to hear that one. (Be sure and read the comments from the previous post which inspired it, too.)
English lads are not so dignified as their sheep, it seems.
