This is the 50th post on the blog and I’m typing it under the handicap of having cut my finger. It isn’t a big cut but it’s right on the tip of the middle finger of my right hand and it’s painful to keep hitting the keyboard with it. I say painful but I suppose in terms of childbirth it doesn’t hurt much. However, it is irritating.

I would not have said, until this morning, that I used it for typing much. I’m still convinced that I use my index fingers for most of my typing, but once you put a plaster on the middle finger it seems to become dominant. Maybe I’m actually a three-fingered typist and have only just realised.

Anyway, apart from moaning about my cut finger and making tea the first job of the day was goose herding. They stay in the barn overnight and we bring them across the yard to their pen for the day. I’m not sure they are always grateful but it was a nice bright day today so it didn’t trouble my conscience. As you can see, it’s a team effort.

Before the days of lorries this used to be the way that all large poultry were moved.

Traditionally geese are ready for market by Michaelmas (29th September), which marked the end of harvest and the start of the new farming year. People who could afford it would have a goose for Michaelmas. and it was the traditional Christmas fowl.  Approximately 20,000 geese a year were driven to Nottingham from Lincolnshire, entering the town through Goose Gate and ending up at the Goose Fair in the market place. In those days they used to apply tar to the feet of the geese to help them complete the long walk. Ours only have to walk a few yards so we don’t need to bother with tar.

This sounds impressive but set it against the estimated 250,000 turkeys that walked from Norfolk to London in 1720 it seems quite small. There were so many turkeys walking to London by the 19th Century that there were actually traffic jams of turkey flocks.

If only I’d known this before Christmas while it was still topical!