A round here the middle of May is shearing time. But then it can vary from that according to how early or late the season is.

If it's late and the wool hasn't "risen" it can be very hard work. Get some warm days and the gap between wool and skin is easily discernable. Too early or too clod and the wool clings to the skin and it's a bit like trying to strip wall paper. If you can see the gap, that's where the shears travel and the clinging wall paper becomes a banana skin by comparison.

Sometimes you get bad years and then the sheep get the blame, the man who sharpened the combs and cutters gets the blame and everyone ends up in a bad mood.

Sheepdogs cower out of sight convinced that all the invective that is flying about is directed at them. Sometimes young farmers will push on with the shearing and try to do it earlier.

I remember one such who clipped his ewes at the beginning of May, there followed one of those late snow storms and he had three trailers loads of dead ewes to cope with.

I came to shearing late in life and have not done any for years and don't intend to, but like most things I do, I gave it my best shot and actually did some social shearing for other people. But it was a sort of social shearing, not proper professional shearing.

There used to be shearers around here that would shear all the year round. Southern Hemisphere, Northern Hemisphere and often lambs at abattoirs in Norway. It's a young man's job and too much of it can turn you in to an old man quite quickly. But it's hard work and it generates hard men.

We used to have a centre down at the rugby club who, they reckoned that, if you wound him up in to a bad mood, could shear 300 ewes a day. One year, first game of the season, and he stands there in his position, slightly built, not very tall and I can see him being eyed up by his opposite number. His opposite number is taller, probably three stones heavier, with a nice tan from his summer holidays and the collar turned up on his rugby shirt – always a sure sign of a poser on the rugby field.

The first time he gets the ball, he tries to run straight through our man, he runs into him, our man doesn't appear to move and the poser crumples in a heap on the floor and has to be helped off the field. Someone ask me what happened, "Where he lives, he wouldn't come across someone who can shear 300 ewes a day."

We, a couple of friends and I, used to do a bit of weekend shearing. Not big flocks, just enough for a good day out and a bit of fun. It was always important to make an early start, firstly to make sure we got finished and secondly to make sure we were in the pub by 7 o'clock.

It wasn't always that easy to make an early start. One Saturday we were to shear for a friend who rented some fields in Montgomeryshire. "Turn right in Kerry and I'll be waiting for you on the side of the road."

We dove miles and couldn't find him. Asking someone where Williams' have some fields isn't enough of a clue in Mid Wales. We went back to Kerry and my one friend, to whom 7 o'clock in the pub was vitally important, asked a passer-by for help. His request was punctuated by a large amount of bad language. He didn't get the help he was expecting. "Is that the sort of language to be using outside the house of the Lord?" He then stood there sheepishly while he was comprehensively told off.

We did eventually find Williams' fields. "I thought you said to turn right in Kerry?"

"You do when you are coming from Newtown."

We finished and were in the pub by 7.30pm which wasn't too bad.

There's a certain satisfaction to be had from sitting in the pub smelling of sheep and covered in sheep shit when everyone else is showered and changed for their Saturday night out. A particular adventure was the visit to shear at the farm of my friend of the profane language outside the church. We always used to look forward to going there because there would always be some incidents that we could turn in to anecdotes.

When we arrived at the appointed time, nothing would be ready, in fact, I always had the impression that he had tumbled out of bed when he heard the clang of the yard gate shutting. This was always even funnier because he tried to give the impression that the opposite was true and he was on the ball for this shearing day. His cap would be awry and his shirt hanging out of his trousers, his wife and family still in bed but no matter.

He called his dogs together; there would be about five or six, none of which, as far as you could see, had any skills apart from an ability to bark. It was, to be as kind as I can, a bit of a ramshackle farm – fences and gates all needed attention.

The sheep and cattle had the run of the farm, even the fields supposedly shut up for hay. We eventually got the sheep in the yard and his family, disturbed by the barking and bad language held them there while we shearers prepared the place where the shearing was to take place. This was in a traditional stone barn and he had done nothing to prepare it. There were still a lot of hay bales in there and we stacked them as best we could, around the walls. Getting the sheep into the barn proved to be difficult, a loud voice and barking dogs – it became something of a pantomime. His dogs never went more than a yard or two from him and became so excited that I saw them bite him three or four times. But we got them in there eventually and everyone stopped for a while to get their breath back.

But there was still drama to come. While we were discussing where to shear and if we should have a cup of tea before we started, there came a loud cry from the farmer. Around the walls of the barn were openings like windows but with wooden shutters.

These were all open and one old crafty ewe, spotting her opportunity, had climbed the bales we had stacked and was about to leap out to freedom. With a speed and determination we did not know he possessed, he hurled himself across the barn and, just as the old ewe was about to jump, he caught her back legs. But she had some momentum and this carried her out so we ended up with her hanging outside the barn with her legs still grasped by the farmer who lay half in and half out of the opening.

The rest of the sheep needed no second chance, they too ran up the bales, across his back and out to freedom. He held on to the one ewe until they had all got out, so we shore that and then went for a cup of tea.