Last night we had our staff Christmas party. My son organised it and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, but a Christmas party at the end of January doesn't have the customary buzz about it.

Having it mid-week proved to be a big saving because people didn't drink as much as they had to go to work next day, but the pub landlord picking his guitar up brought an even bigger saving. Everyone ran off home as quickly as they could.

We didn't have a party last year. There was a tentative date fixed for March, but not everyone could make it, so it didn't happen. So this party was, in fact, for Christmas 2007.

When our chicken sheds are cleaned out of birds and the chickens themselves go to that great supermarket shelf in the sky, there are always a few birds that are too small to go. We call them road runners because they scuttle about among the others.

There are usually about 20 or 30, which isn't a lot on a percentage basis out of 50,000. We catch them and my son gives them to his mother-in-law. She puts them in what is, once a year, her lambing shed.

Away from the competition of an intensive environment, they grow like mushrooms and she sells them oven-ready, having feathered and dressed them herself. One usually finds its way back here and into the freezer.

Last week Mr Fox paid her a visit and killed every one. They counted up the carcasses and they were all still there, not even one taken for a meal.

You have to keep a wary eye on dogs on farms. I often have to go on to farms where I don't know the dogs, and border collies, especially, have to be watched.

My dog, Mert, will ignore some strangers, sidle up to others and give them a nip, and is quite aggressive and nasty to other people, but you can't quite work out how he decides.

Some collies will rush up and try to embrace you and, as they are usually filthy, this can be as bad as a nip.

I went on a neighbour's farm one day and two dogs were trying to climb all over me with affection. Another old bitch came out of a shed and made her way across to me. I assumed she wanted to join in – she didn't run, bark or growl, but the bite she gave me went through my overalls, through my jeans and left an inch-long cut on my leg.

I used to have a little black dog called Smut. She would lie in the yard and totally disregard a visitor. She would best be described as horse sheepdog portrayed years ago in Giles cartoons, just a black blob on the cartoon, with just one eye showing.

The visitor would walk down to our back door, raise their hand to knock, and she would have them in the back of the leg. They wouldn't have seen her coming and sometimes they didn't see her going, but they would be well bitten.

Smut came with me down the lane one day to post a letter, popped her head out to see what was coming, and was clipped by a lorry going too fast and cutting the corner.

I'd bought her at three years old from a man who bred working sheepdogs as part of his living. She had conceived twice, but each time had only one large pup which had to be removed by Caesarean.

I kept sheep then, which was why I bought her. She was full of work, but there was some- thing missing, it wasn't quite working.

I'd take her into the field where the sheep were and she would go down in to it half- crouch like a coiled spring. I would tell her to come by.

She would look at me, I would look at her and nothing would happen. So I would run around the sheep and she would run with me. Eventually we would gather them – after a fashion.

There used to be something called the Agricultural Training Board and it held sheepdog training classes, so I enrolled Smut and I.

We went along and they had a field laid out with hurdles and a pen, just like they do at trials. There were about ten of us there and one by one we had to take our dog forward to the instructor. As a morning out, it was great entertainment because most of the dogs were good farm dogs, but few knew anything about working right or left.

Eventually it was our turn; the teacher was an electrician who had trialled dogs for years. "Now Roger, tell me about your little bitch." So I did, very much as I have told it to you here, except the bit about biting visitors.

"I know the man you bought it off and he bought if off so-and-so and it was bred out of this and is related to that", and so on.

"She's a well-bred bitch and full of work, just look at her." And there she was crouched down totally focused on the 10 sheep under the hedge at the other end of the field.

"Do you mind if I try her out?"

"Not at all."

"Because the reason she isn't working properly for you is because she is Welsh- speaking and you are not."

He took her out and she put those sheep through the hurdles and penned them just like you see on the TV.

My mouth was wide open. Four or five words of Welsh, and Smut and I were a good team.

A friend of mine was on next. He had a big rough farm dog who was obviously enjoying the day out and tried to make love to all the other dogs, regardless of gender.

After the preliminaries, he set off towards the sheep, at what is best described as an enthusiastic trot, passed a clump of nettles and turned back to "mark" them, then went on his way, but a bit slower than before, all the time his tail wagging vigorously.

He was still a fair way from the sheep when the instructor said: "As your dog went down the field he was wagging his tail.

"Wagging the tail is not a subconscious action. It takes a message from the brain to wag a tail and after your dog has wagged his tail, well, he hasn't got that much brain left to work sheep."