I remember when I lived in France during my last year at university, I would dread the end of the week. I hated Sunday’s because it was the one day that I felt really alone. I rarely had this feeling on any other day but when Sunday arrived I felt so sad. I think it wasn’t helped by the lack of places open. It was provincial southern France and it was way before a time that trade laws allowed anywhere to open on a Sunday - there were very few places to go or be entertained or be distracted. Everyone went to their friends and family’s houses. It was a time for family to go for lunch, to go for walks along the promenade and to just well, be together. I used to watch the people wandering up and down outside my flat and feel really homesick. Craving and almost aching for a hug from my mum and dad and sisters. Or just a chance to hang with good friends comforted by their company even if we were sitting in silence. I couldn’t bear to speak to my mum on a Sunday as I’d just end up crying and wishing she was close by - or I was at home smelling the warm love of Sunday roast dinner as it wafted around our familiar house.
Sadly I had no loved ones living nearby. There was the alcoholic student who I flat shared with who lived in the room below mine and a girl whom I knew from England - she was really very strange and had psychotic tendencies. Sometimes I’d go for a walk maybe find a bakery fleetingly open but mostly the feeling was empty and grey and cold like the shutters that were locked firmly down ‘til probably Tuesday when I was back and busy at work and Uni with life bustling around me keeping loneliness at bay.
Turns out loneliness is a thing. Googling it there are loads of support groups and lines that are there to exclusively help lonely people. That surely is a sign of how many there are. And there are many. The British Red Cross estimates that 9 million people in the UK ‘often or always,’ feel lonely and disconnected. The Royal College of General Practitioners cites it as a major health condition; ‘loneliness and social isolation can be as bad for patients as chronic health conditions. Loneliness puts people at a 50% increased risk of an early death compared to those with good social connections. And it as bad for health as obesity.’ There are many groups that aim to support and help combat this. Age UK is one of them which aims to combat loneliness through its befriending service. They match lonely people with volunteers who have similar interests and together they organise visits home joining up to accompany lonely people on days or trips out - even if it’s for a doctor or dentist appointment.
Joey the pygmy goat, sunbathing at the window (trying to get in)
Loneliness doesn’t just affect humans. We used to have 3 pygmy goats - we got them a few years ago when the novelty of having space and green fields around us was fresh and new and having just exited a concrete jungle the stereotypical urban desire to fill the green space with four legged animals was a knee jerk reality.
Sadly one passed away of natural causes not long after it arrived and more recently in December the other little goat fell victim to an attack by another animal. Which left one. Little Joey. On Friday last week, I was walking the dogs in the field and at every corner this little goat would come over to bleat and hop both his feet up on the fence for a stroke. When I got to the end of the walk he really looked at me (with his weird rectangular pupils), as if to say, ‘I can’t take being on my own anymore,’ then just clean jumped the fence (this is a fenced field he has been in for the entire time and has never ever jumped the fence). I was really shocked. There he was, just walking along side me and the two dogs I had just been walking, demanding company. I ushered him into a neighbouring field with a slightly higher fence and went down to the house thinking he’d settle ok in the makeshift straw bed I made in the corner of the outbuildings.
An hour or so later to my amazement he appeared at the door, bleating to come in. I could not believe he had jumped the fence a second time out of the more secure second field. I think I was getting the message. He was so, so lonely and after weeks of being without his second companion, could take it no more. He was putting matters into his own hooves.
So, all weekend and since then he has been living in the garden roaming freely with the German Shepherd dogs. Manifesting his inner domestic pet yearnings to have company and just be involved in our day to day goings on of life.
Today, writing this, I could hear much sturdier clomping on the wooden floor in the hallway which on inspection was Joey finally having made it into the house. He has done this several times since - having a good nose around and almost pondering where his indoor bed might go (see picture below).
Sadly, I can’t have him live inside - he will chew too many things (all of the buds in the garden at his mouth height have been obliterated) and goat poop although extremely neatly formed or being as tidy as rabbit’s nugget poop, the sheer quantity with his other end produce is unfathomable. TONNES of the stuff churns out when he decides he needs to go, which is very regularly and there’s no shift shape of body to suggest that’s what he’s doing. It’s a kind of shityourselfwhilstwalking scenario. It’s quite staggering that no matter what he eats - grass, goat feed, muesli, scraps, veg, eucalyptus leaves (a favourite) his poos are exactly the same colour and shape.
Close allies suggest putting a nappy on him but honestly trying to come up with a design for a makeshift goat nappy that 1) can cover his rather large back passage and 2) contain (without spillage) the shit that literally once it starts, cannot stop - like popcorn popping, industriously churning out in super fast fashion in every direction is a total no go.
My driveway is covered and so are the bottom of the shoes as we all inadvertently trudge it in to the hallway. I dropped a bit of chocolate on the floor last night and picked it up thinking the little brown ball was…you know what I am going to say…..
I have no idea what future he holds but the point is, we all succumb to loneliness at some points in life that are usually driven by circumstances beyond our control - it’s a very real thing including for our little furry animals. But they don’t have a voice - he can’t tell me or call Age UK for a buddy to go to the vets with or just hang with in the field. So in that vein, the pygmy goat is manifesting as a dog and I’m happy to have him as that. I’m calling him the ‘gog.’
I will keep you updated on his fate and future!
For now a little gallery of Joey - highlights, he loves cornflakes for breakfast but hates being on the dog lead and won’t walk with it (YET!). He’s also eyeing up the lounge...
‘What a way to start my day!’
‘NOPE, not moving with that attached to me.’
‘What about a bed around here? I suit the colour scheme actually. Nice ‘n’ cosy…’