“Can I do anything to help?” Chris asked. (I expect he thought I would say no because I was making an apple pie at the time!)

“Would you like to peel the apples while I core and slice them?” I responded.

Rather surprised, but unable to retract his offer, Chris set to peeling the apples. I cut out the cores and put them to one side to go in the organic bin, and the peelings went into a plastic bag which contained other peelings and scraps that I had been saving for Rosie’s goats. Those lucky goats, in that bag were all sorts of delicacies awaiting them… like potato peelings, carrot skins, butternut pumpkin skin (I made pumpkin soup a few days ago), stale bread, and – best of all – quite a lot of porridge that I couldn’t face for breakfast three days running (back on the Dukan Diet).

“What shall I do with the skins?” Chris inquired at the end of his task, “Do you want them for the goats?”

“Yes please,” I said, “they can go in the big plastic bag for the goats, not the other one. I had to de-core the apples because the seeds are poisonous, so I’m keeping those separate.”

“I suppose the goats like to eat with some decorum!” Chris quipped.

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An hour or two later we joined Rosie’s family and friends at the farm for a lovely roast lamb dinner.

“Is this one of your sheep?” I asked as I looked at the lamb on my plate (I’m a wee bit squeamish about eating animals I have known, however briefly.)

“Yes…” Rosie answered tentatively (catching my drift), “but I don’t think you knew it.”

“It’s not the little old one that had its eye pecked by the birds and I helped nurse back to health – is it?”

“No, that one’s still alive. You didn’t meet this one,” Rosie assured me.

Secure in that knowledge, I stopped picturing the sheep with the bad eye and I tucked in to the tender and delicious lamb. As we left the goats were about to be fed – I hope they like porridge better than I do; on a whole I’d rather eat pumpkin skins… or apple pie… Well, I had to have just a little, after all I was the one who de-cored ’em.