December 10th

Gary sat outside the farm door, staring at the sky. He was so bored, waiting for the snow to come. There wasn’t really anything he could do to help Ludwig with the party preparations directly so he went inside and tried to convince the young farmer that he could act as his secretary and at least make phone calls and arrange things for him. With the help of a voice-controlled phone he could comfortably call different people for him and help like that. No fingers necessary.

Ludwig was sceptical as to whether he should teach his crazy talking goat how to use his mobile phone. He could imagine Gary having endless conversations with the smug voice in Ludwig’s phone. His data package would probably be rapidly consumed from watching too many videos of fainting goats, goats singing TV show themes, goats in trees, goats in totes and goats in floating tires sporting the title ‘whatever floats your goat’.

Eventually, Ludwig had to admit that he was so overwhelmed with the organisation that he agreed. He was surprised how quickly his goat figured out how to make his phone do things by talking to it. Only a few hours later, Gary — pretending to be Ludwig’s visiting cousin — phoned round the neighbours and friends in the village to make sure everyone was helping out and to answer any questions that they might have. Since he was always at Ludwig’s side, he already knew exactly what was going on and who did what. Ludwig started to wonder if his goat’s secret super power was project managing and party planning.