New Goats

The introduction of the farm's new herd of goats has gone mostly unnoticed, except by an observant and insightful minority. This minority are probably united in insomnia - a kind of not sleeping together that young Thomas became well-acquainted with during his formative partying years - because the herd arrived under the cover of darkness. They have been imported for a specific purpose because of the gradual and almost imperceptible culling of the farm's domestic herd. These are specially bred Southern Cape goats, suckled on red wine in the lush valleys around Stellenbosch. Prior to selective breeding by and/or with the ruling classes of the time, they used to run amok as the "notorious sloshed goats of the 'bosch", a phrase which in turn became a kind of shibboleth to identify the intoxicated of the town. Here in sedate Septford, the home of quality farming, inebriation and given way to abbreviation as S. Cape goats.

Those with Biblical leanings are of course referred to Leviticus 16 and Judges 12, 4 - 6