A narrow scramble, no wider than a sheep track, edged over the heaps of waste rock towards a larch wood within a ferny, stone wall.
Away from my own home landscape of sheep and wheat, there was a certain relief in the grapevines and fruit trees which lined the road.
"I'll enjoy seeing my pregnant wife, I'll enjoy seeing a few sheep," Cook said of his plans for that much discussed return, which will include significant discussions with Andy Flower, the head coach, and Paul Downton, managing director of England cricket, regarding the team's immediate future.
Hebridean sheep graze freely on the Machrihanish Dunes course, serving as natural lawnmowers, and the rough is studded with purple pyramid, frog and marsh orchids.
By the middle of the century as much as half the planet could be "water insecure"; letting cows and sheep drink what's left will seem obscene.
Since 2010, AgriProtein has been working on developing technology that sees insects fed on streams of biowaste, including slaughterhouse waste, and then processed into flakes which can be fed to pigs and sheep.
NOMAD MIGRATION ROUTE, MOROCCO For centuries members of the semi-nomadic Ait Atta tribe have traversed mountain paths south twice a year, from the High Atlas to their homeland in the Jebel Sahro, to find new pastures for their huge flocks of sheep and goats.
iPhone Shaun in the City - Sheep Spotter (£1.49) One for children, this, from Aardman Animation.
The sheep become agitated, and their cries louder, as a high-pitched engine approaches.
Two swallows chase low, weaving between the sheep and lambs.
He warned Blair about the "anxieties which are developing particularly among beef farmers and to a lesser degree sheep farmers" as a consequence of a government midterm review.
