Much more civilised.

At 5.00am this morning I was once again up and out in the field in my pyjamas checking for any new arrivals. The dogs were annoyingly full of beans as they gleefully accepted their extra walk.

For the second day in the row there was nothing to report back. No galloping was required, just the slow trudge back upstairs as I tried to prepare myself to fall back to sleep the moment my head crashed into the pillow. I don't think Mrs S had stirred at all.

And so I stayed until Sue brought me a cup of coffee at 7.30, she's like that you know. Casually she tossed the binoculars onto the bed next to me. 'Keep an eye on Dilly, she's on her own in the middle of the field sniffing around'. I stood up and drank my coffee with one eye surveilling Dilly who was framed perfectly in the bedroom window.  After a minute or two Dilly wandered out of my view heading for the water trough. Another time-waster I thought. A few minutes later I arrived downstairs and casually looked outside to see Dilly wandering around with her tail sticking out. Now that's more like it. Dilly is at 347days so she was ready to go any day.

By 8.30am, after a little assistance she gave birth to a very strong female cria weighing in at a whopping 10.44kgs. Fantastic. Initially I thought it was another brown girl and was a bit presumptious in announcing that fact. However, with the benefit of a drying wind and a warming sun the new arrival has revealed herself to be a delicious smoky dark fawn with very pretty light fawn facial markings.

Dilly is white as you can see from the picture and the father is our boy Cambridge Columbus, The Clump. I think he has done a pretty darn good job of darkening down the cria and that is his sixth female cria out of seven progeny so far!

So ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Patou Sahara, she is, as you can see, quite gorgeous.