Two counted sheep stand around having a tea break while a woman sleeps. Realising she has woken up again, they must go back to work.

What do imaginary sheep do once they’ve been counted and the person counting them drifts off to sleep? They could probably do anything they would like to because nobody is actively monitoring or counting them as they jump over a fence or gate. They could be doing countless leisurely activities from scuba diving to wool spinning and everything between.

Standing around drinking tea is an option as illustrated above. Tired from continual running, jumping of wooden structures and being assigned numeric values, every imaginary counted sheep needs to become less orderly and take a break. A spot of tea is just the thing to recover from the exertion.

Of course, they would only be free to have a break so long as the source of their existence remains asleep. If the person who was counting them should wake up, the sheep would once again need to get back to work.

A while ago, I drew a ‘Counting Sheep’ cartoon where a woman was having trouble sleeping and tried a different kind of counting sheep for her insomnia. I have reused the bed linen from that in the cartoon above because I quite liked the colours. They were all washed and cleaned before reuse, naturally.