A HERD of cattle which invaded some York allotments have been herded back onto a Stray by Press Chief Reporter Mike Laycock during his daily exercise.

Mike was taking a lunchtime stroll yesterday (Wednesday) through the allotments at the bottom of Kilburn Road, off Fulford Road, when he saw about 15 cows wandering down a path towards him, none of them socially distancing.

"I wondered, to misquote The Clash: should I stay and herd them back, or should I go and leave it to someone else,"said Mike.

He decided to walk towards them, clapping his hands, and they held their ground until Mike was about two metres away.

"Then, almost as if they had heard some of the propaganda about social distancing guidelines, they panicked, turned around with some difficulty in the narrow pathway and went back up the path," he said.

"Most of them headed off through a gate which someone had left open, back on to Walmgate Stray, where they are meant to be grazing.

"However, about five of them went off along a different path and ended up wandering onto someone's allotment, and they started munching their veg patch," Mike said.

"I found an allotment holder to help block a path deeper into the allotments, and I went through some nettles to get behind the cows and shoo them back out on to the path. Fortunately, they then trotted off the right way along the path and out through the gate."

'Cowboy' Mike said the gate had been left open for the past few weeks so people could avoid touching it when out for a walk through the allotments and Stray.

However, a council sign had now gone up saying it now needed to be closed because cattle had been put onto the stray, but someone either hadn't seen it or had ignored it.

"Anyhow, it certainly broke the tedium of lockdown, when every day is like the day before," he said.

"I didn't realise the prescribed daily exercise would turn into a cowboy exercise."