Here is my dilemma: I am unlucky.

There, I have said it.

Here are some random examples:

• I dropped her car keys in the cinema car park. They fell down the drain.
• I lusted over gold trainers for weeks, bought them and they tore my feet to ribbons.
• I slipped two discs in my neck because I had accidentally tried on my new sports bra the wrong way round and was stuck.
• I drunkenly slipped on a night out with a new boyfriend, banged my head on the bar, fell over, banged my head on the floor and woke up at 5am the next morning. In A&E.

See what I mean? Quite unlucky. I imagine that at some point in life I have ventured out somewhere vaguely important with an item of clothing on inside out. Or worse, have come out of shower, slipped on some shorts, and gone down the shop with a rogue loose pube clinging to the back of my calf.

Last week, my sheep were stolen, cementing my impression that I am unlucky.

Just to be clear, these were not just any sheep. They were my beloved Deina and Frieda.

If you have followed my antics for a while, you will remember that when I moved out of home, it was decided that the majority of my flock-of-six should be dispersed. I parted with three without too many tears, but I was utterly heartbroken at the thought of selling Deina and Freida. For a start, I had been given Deina when my bid to begin my own flock failed twice. The first failure came when my embryos were all born male. The second came when I bought a ewe in lamb only for her to give birth to yet more ram lambs. So Deina was given to me as a runt to be hand reared and nurtured. Frieda was her daughter. I adored both.

The solution was to turn them out with a friend, Meriel’s tiny flock at her home in North Wales until they could return to me, and she could retain their lambs in the meantime.

Meriel took excellent care of them; it worked perfectly. Right up until last week, when someone spoiled our fun.

Here’s my interpretation of the events that lead to their disappearance:

• ‘Someone’ [read, The Thief] spotted them amongst her father’s larger flock of Welsh hill sheep and thought them quite delightful. Who wouldn’t?
• A feature on Welsh TV’s Ffermio revealed the value and virtues of the breed and ‘Someone’ began plotting.
• ‘Someone’ ventured out the following night and helped themselves.
• ‘Someone’ left all of her dad’s. ‘Someone’ took all of ours.

It’s been 10 days since then and there has been no sign of them. Meriel and her family searched their land over and over. They rang around the neighbouring farms. They called the police. To clarify, Meriel’s home is a four hour drive away, so it’s not that I didn’t want to help look for them, but I’m not sure that searching for my missing sheep that far from my home constitutes essential travel.

We posted on social media appealing for information or their safe return. It has been shared literally hundreds of times, but neither of us has heard a peep. Or bleat. Nothing.

In a way it’s all quite ironic. This site is called ‘The lost Sheep Diaries’, and now I am diarising the loss of my sheep.

I struggle to make sense of why someone would be so cruel as to steal a pet. Did they not think that we would fret and worry? Did they not think that they would be missed? I am clinging to the idea that the sheep will have followed the perpetrators willfully only if they were kind to them. I am praying that sense of kindness towards them has remained, and will remain.

So now, in the space of five months, I have slipped two discs, lost a grandparent, postponed my wedding, lost my sheep and have since discovered that one of my dearest friends cannot make my postponed wedding date.

Nevertheless, I’m at the ‘onwards and upwards’ stage, because it may be that I am unlucky, but I also have so very much to be thankful for.

There is a time when it is ok to be pessimistic. But during a global pandemic is not the time.

So if you know of any nice Swiss Valais for sale after this has all blown over, will you give me a call?