Name That Calf...

I woke up in a hotel room, confused and in Wiltshire on Saturday morning. I’d booked a hotel for Katie and I in the historic little village of Lacock. We arrived late afternoon on Friday after spending most of the day on the M25 and went for a stroll around the local pubs and had dinner and too much vino before tripping up the creaking 700 year old stairs to bed...thus waking up a bit hungover and not quite sure of where I was.

Lacock is a beautiful spot not far from Stonehenge and quite near the Somerset border. Its sometimes difficult to see evidence of being in the 21st Century when your in one of the old streets; stone walls and roofs and beams everywhere. I highly recommend staying in The Sign of The Angel http://www.lacock.co.uk/ where the rooms, welcome and food are all excellent. I’m not saying this for any commercial reasons and they don’t even know I’m giving them a mention here, it just happened to be a faultless stay and the food was fantastic - just a good tip for anybody wanting a romantic getaway. The beer around there is good too as Wadsworth Brewery in Devizes is only 9 miles away.

Anyway, I thought I’d phone my mother and check on the farm on Saturday morning and lo and behold our final calf (male) had just been born. The mother, Louise, was aware I was going away and clearly chose to give birth while I wasn’t around as a form of revenge for me telling her to bloody hurry up the week before and calling her a fat old knacker! Clever things cows.

So, we have a calf to name. Or YOU do, as I am inviting suggestions for names which must begin with the letter “V”. We go through the alphabet by year, like car number plates used to be in the days before Chavs and ASBOS and when kids were taught to spell and string a sentence together in schools which weren’t afraid to exercise a modicum of discipline and before corruption, left-wing idealism and bureaucracy hadn’t destroyed everything that was once good about Britain. (By the way, I refuse to accept accusations that this blog is anything other than a farming blog – I just digress occasionally).

This year all calves therefore need to be V reg as such. We have already had 8 bull calves this year and so the following names have already been taken, so don’t suggest any of these:

Vincent, Vladimir, Vesuvius, Vaughn, Vernon, Viognier, Velasquez and Valkyrie

Other than the above, feel free to attach your names to the blog. All serious suggestions will be considered (no Va-Va-Vooms or Viagras please) and I’ll choose the winner on or about the 15^th of August. The winner will also get their own name as the second name as in “Verbose Jeremy” for example.

Here’s a picture of the little chap!