If you'd been in the Cartford Inn on January 19 you might have heard this intellectual argument based on my daughter Kate's farm in far away South Wales. Despite the scientific accuracy of the ewes' impregnation, (if you don't know, better not to ask) the first lambs have been appearing several days early. The family went into conference. They hadn't taken January's new moon into account. New moon and full moon, apparently, can affect gestation periods and the timing of births.
I explained this theory to the Cartford's Friday night brains trust. They sneered. They scoffed. They jeered. Agricultural phrases such as 'bullmanure' and 'spherical objects' abounded. I weighed their opinion against generations of Welsh farmlore and experience. No contest. If that little moon can drag countless billions of tons of sea water across the face of the earth and back, who could doubt its effect on a lamb in the womb – or those spherical objects?
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