What’s the must-have item in a library? Books, you may think, but Jacob Rees-Mogg was recently photographed in the library of his 17th-century Somerset house and there didn’t appear to be any. A bust of Pitt the Younger, a box of Creme Eggs, a bracelet fashioned from the hair of the horse that the Duke of Wellington rode at Waterloo – given to the Moggster by his wife for Christmas (what to buy the man who has everything?) – but no books. 

Still, it’s not as odd as the Duke of Northumberland’s library at Alnwick Castle, where their 16,000 books are accompanied by various stuffed animals – they are keen taxidermists and preserve their family pets this way. And I can’t possibly reveal which duke had an ashtray shaped like a penis in his library.

The shaggy sheep story about the new must-have pet – it’ll end in tears

So it turns out that the new must-have pet is not the latest variety of fluffy dog, or a tortoise, or a very small pig that grows into an alarmingly big pig. It’s a sheep: a Valais Blacknose, to be precise. The lambs of this very sweet-looking breed – black faces, shaggy coat – are now fetching up to £10,000 a pop because they’re said to make excellent pets and can be trained like dogs. (Has the country finally run dry of puppies?)

I have to confess that reading this news gave me slight PTSD, since we had a pet sheep when I was little. She was called 91, because that was the number the farmer had sprayed on her as a lamb, but when her mother died in the field next to our house, we were allowed to adopt her. We fed her with a bottle at first, and she later lived in the dog bed and came on walks with us as a much-loved family member… until foot-and-mouth disease arrived in the Scottish Borders, that is, and she had to be taken away to be put down.

My mother sometimes tearfully jokes that 91 thought she’d be OK because she believed she was a dog, but sadly we had to declare her and she had to be carted off. Heartbreaking. A cautionary tale if you are considering forking out for one of those lambs…

Bring back knob-throwing, snail-racing and all the rest

Well done to all those who’ve contributed to the jolly back-and-forth about Dorset knob biscuits in the Telegraph letters pages recently. Last Sunday, David Potter from Newbury noted that the annual Dorset Knob-Throwing Festival was cancelled this year. It’s not the only event we’ve missed since the start of the pandemic. 

As a keen observer of eccentric British pastimes, I know that the World Snail Racing Championship in Norfolk has been scrapped for the past two years, along with the World Nettle Eating Championship in Dorset and last year’s Cheese Rolling competition in Gloucester. The British Lawn Mower Racing Association (a genuine organisation – Google it) also had to abandon various events last summer. Here’s hoping that the end of Covid restrictions means all our most glorious sports can return this year.

And finally…some advice for those of you that have not travelled for a while 

I’m very sorry if you are one of the thousands of people who had to travel through the recent storms and lost their luggage as a result. British Airways is apparently struggling to reunite a good number of passengers with their bags because of the chaos caused by pesky Eunice and Franklin.

As one who thought her own bag was lost recently, I can sympathise with that sinking feeling as everyone else leaves the luggage carousel, but you hang on, hoping desperately that your bag will suddenly appear from the loading bay. I waited for an hour at the airport in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in December, all hope dwindling, watching one bag that wasn’t mine circle again and again until I was the very last person there. The last piece of luggage on the carousel simply couldn’t be mine, I insisted, because although it looked a bit like it, it didn’t have a large red ribbon attached to its handle, like the one I had tied to mine.

Long story short, after complaining to a nearby member of airport staff, I realised that it was indeed my bag but the ribbon had come off in transit, and I was so tired that I had failed to realise it. And the moral of the story is, if you’re in the market for a new suitcase, don’t buy a plain black one like the rest of us – find a lurid pink or green one instead.It’s a very happy thought that has completely bowled me over, so if you were one of those people, I would just like to take the chance to say thank you very much (and I hope you weren’t too shocked by the rude bits).