Go on then 
Right, I can’t sleep anyway so might just as well do it now.
Here is the Croatian one:
A few years back I was on vacation on the Croatian island of Krk with my family, and we visited some town and did tourist stuff. When we got back to our car after a few hours I noticed that there was a sheep on the parking lot. It had obviously escaped in search for greener grass (it found some growing out of cracks in the asphalt), and indeed there were other sheep nearby, on a property next to the parking lot. The fence was damaged where it had escaped, either by the sheep or by something else.
The other sheep stayed inside though, doing sheep stuff.
Knowing next to nothing about sheep I was concerned that it might get lost, so after making sure that it wasn’t aggressive I told my family to wait in the car and went to see if I could find anyone to tell about it.
I walked down the next road and looked for some locals. There were none. So I walked another 200m or so and spotted two men that were standing on the road talking to a third one in his garden.
I walked up to them and greeted them in Croatian, but then asked them if they understood English, which they could.
I told them about the sheep. The conversation went like this:
Me: There are sheep up there, next to the parking lot on the hill. Do you know who owns them?
Man: yeah, sure, what about them?
Me: one of them is on the parking lot.
Man: is it dead?
Me: no it seems to be fine, it is eating grass.
Man: then that’s OK isn’t it? What’s the problem?
Me: I just wanted to tell someone that it has escaped. It is outside the fence.
Man: wait, you walked all the way down the road (400m or so) to tell us that? You must be German!
They all laughed when I confirmed that they were correct, and assured me that they would tell their neighbor, but that I shouldn’t worry. “Sheep are not that clever, but usually clever enough to stay out of danger when they escape.” they told me.
They wished me a nice stay and we parted ways.
Walking back to my car I did feel a bit silly, but I kept thinking that if it was my sheep I’d want to know.
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The Norwegian story goes like this:
When my wife and I visited Norway in 2013 we rented a small cottage near Mandal. It was on some old farmer’s property next to a lake, and it was a bit old but cozy.
It was however also on a little peninsula and there was only a narrow path to get there, the car had to be parked at the farm house, some 300m or so away.
My Norwegian is not great and the farmer could not speak English or German, but he showed us the way from the parking lot to the cottage, telling us that we had to cross his sheep pasture to get there, how to safely open the electric fence, and of course that we had to make sure to close it again so the sheep would not escape.
No problem so far. We got all our stuff to the cottage, and when we went to the store and came back we always found a way to the cottage (the farmer kept changing the fences a bit, and he apparently rotated which part of the pasture the sheep were on, the usual stuff).
The only thing that caused us some mild shock was the ram. He was being kept separately, and when he spotted us he ran toward us making the meanest noises I’ve ever heard from a sheep. Usually he was on the other side of the property though, so he never came close.
…until one day he did.
We came from a day trip to Lindesnes, entered the pasture, saw no sheep, continued…
And then we heard him. And saw him galloping at us at top speed. Suddenly I wasn’t that sure about the fence geometry anymore. Was there even a fence between the ram and us??
In retrospect I am very happy that Norway isn’t densely populated so nobody saw the two dumb German tourists dash across the pasture, chased by the ram. It wasn’t elegant. I already saw myself throwing souvenirs at the ram while walking backwards.
Thankfully it wasn’t necessary. There was still one fence between the ram and us (although frankly I am not sure if it would contain him if he is angry enough) and we were also quick enough to make it to the next one and through it.
So yeah, I got chased by a sheep. Years later someone told me “you just have to push his head away to keep him at bay” but I am not sure how reliable that technique is…
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Great story and you definitely did the right thing. I’d want to know.
I’d amend what they said to you with this:
“Sheep are not that clever, they rarely stay out of danger when they escape.”
They’ll happily stand “snagged” in a bramble bush until they die, yet the moment you approach magically find out they can pull themselves free.
Or the perils of a Y shaped branch, where they happily walk forward slowly choking themselves to death, forgetting they can walk backwards. The list of things like this is endless.
Again, you did the right thing, retreat is the better you escaped unscathed. People don’t realise how big a Ram can be. Our main Tup weighs in between 105 and 115kg, depending on the time of year. He has knocked me off my feet and could easily break my leg. He’s not aggressive and thinks he’s playing as he was hand reared. Most sheep will turn tail and run if you make noise, shout, charge at them, but not him. It’s sport.
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I usually don’t like to talk negatively about an animal’s intelligence, as many animals are smarter than they look on first glance, but for sheep I guess there really isn’t all too much going on inside their heads a lot of the time. 
I looked up their D&D 5E stats just for laughs.
The ram has STR 17, but INT 3.
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I was playing "school"with the kids over the weekend. At one point Richard pointed to his dresser.
Richard: “There’s an elf up there.”
Me: “what’s he doing up there?”
R: “probably spying on us.” (Shrugs)
There’s a lot of reasons we don’t do Elf on a Shelf in our household.
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Ive been away from online activities for a while - selling and buying a house tends to do that. (@schurum you and yours will still fit). The new place is only 20 minutes from where we live now and still nestled amongst active airfields and museums. Great views over open countryside which is hard to find inthe UK at an affordable price. There is a rail line close by but it only has about four trains a day plus historic steam trains. Last week we saw this while exploring.
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I started to wonder where you went…
New house, eh?
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Standard class 4? I can’t read the engine number … though I suppose since the three still running are all on different railways you might not want to tell us?!
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Pm’d
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New new house
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That railway line is most definitely a plus 
looking forward to lend a hand this summer
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That is amazing. I bet you’re glad that it’s a low frequency line as trains, especially cargo trains, can be very loud and the historic rolling stock is a huge plus in my book.
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The village is close to the annual egg throwing competition at Swatton. If you havent come across this major sport before, it gets government sport grants, lots of videos on youtube. https://youtu.be/b85AYw6jUZY?si=yI4MOyYFqwNrFl1y
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We must have passed some major milestone in our house this year. For the first time since the kids were born, our little elf skipped our house this year. Or maybe my wife has just thrown in the towel 
. She’ll be missed.
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I hope you find your wife. I don’t blame her…all that craziness I’d hit the road too…
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Yes.
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Not all that long ago Blue mailboxes like this one were just about everywhere.
Even several Post Office locations have removed them due to how often they were broke into or vandalized so I was quite surprised to see this one at an Albertsons store.
Wheels
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Took a trip down to Acapulco yesterday and today…
Central Mexico is a toothy place…
Not super-familiar with the southwestern side of Mexico…this is the Rio Papagayo and looks to be enormous…probably looks ridiculous in flood…
Acapulco is currently in some turmoil (10th deadliest city in the world) and the specific area is on the State Department do not travel list…so we limit our activity to the airport. (Interesting that New Orleans is the 8th deadliest…does the State Department recommend not traveling there either? )
OK…so we tittered like 12 year olds with this one and used every opportunity to comment on it…
Funny because we came in from the northeast on kind of a right base to runway 28…so you never even really see the city of Acapulco until you depart…then it suddenly pops into view over some large ridgelines…
Good grief that looks like tight quarters…
Back into Houston to spend the night…
More familiar ground…Atlanta…
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