It’s time for our sheep to go on their holidays. Not that they have to go far, just across the road in fact. But like all family holidays this takes a bit of planning.

The sheep may not need spades and swimming costumes for the beach, but they do need the odd bucket – not to make sandcastles but to contain water for a refreshing drink, especially if the hot weather continues.

The flock moves to give their usual pasture a rest, and allow us to carry out pre-winter maintenance and repairs to their housing. I’m not really sure that they enjoy the move, despite the availability of fresh grass – like many of us after a couple of weeks away they are looking forward to getting home, looking back wistfully at their cosy barn across the road through the bars of the gate of their holiday field.

But like getting the family ready for a summer break, moving the flock over the road is no mean feat.

The first time we attempted it a few years ago we thought it would be a simple matter of rounding them up with a bucket of food and leading them peacefully across the road to their temporary home. I’d watched all those episodes of Countryfile which show big flocks of sheep moving together tidily across hill and dale like shoals of sardines being chased by dolphins. So it would be no trouble at all to shift our small bunch of animals 200 yards or so. Would it?

We mobilised friends and family, chose a Sunday as it is normally a quiet day on the road, and prepared for the move. Everything went well, that was until the flock reached the tipping point – through our field gate and on to the road.

Suddenly my well laid plans went completely awry. Scenting fresh grass in the roadside verges the well-contained flock suddenly burst apart – like the Red Arrows doing a complicated air display routine. People and sheep were dashing about in all directions and the usually reliable feed bucket wasn’t doing the business. Then we realised this Sunday was a car boot day. Vehicles started backing up in both directions as we tried, largely in vain, to get the flock back under control. Drivers were very understanding up to a point – and passers-by on their way to the pub joined in the ‘fun’.

What should have been a 10-minute job turned out to take about three times as long, but eventually we got all the animals together and into their new home. We had to apologise to our neighbours who, for a while, had sheep eating their well-tended garden plants.

We had loads more fun getting them home again.

This year neighbours and car booters have nothing to worry about. The sheep go on holiday in a big trailer complete with all their baggage. Not unlike most Oxfordshire families in fact.