Stories

Brencis is getting quite big now and nibbles on our clothes,
something that he will have to stop. 

I have been thinking a lot about the power of stories this week from the stories that entice someone to move somewhere else or to see an old place in a new light, to the stories that sell a product or the stories that help us cope with life. Facts don't always help, even if we think they do or should. As I learnt on a course, we are all quite irrational beings - we have to be - we have to make instant judgements at times or we would be in danger of being overwhelmed by details. We have to think intuitively, which is often built on experience but not always. It does help if our intuition is based on previous good experiences but if our previous experience was negative, of course that hampers us in making those intuitive judgments.

Turbjørn eating snow again

Our move to Latvia started with a story, someone else's story. A friend of ours had visited Latvia the year before and told us about his experiences of helping in a children's camp and Ian and I felt it would be a wonderful opportunity to visit as a family. After eight years of nearly yearly visits we took the plunge and moved here and not regretted that decision since. That isn't to say that it hasn't been hard at times, but we love living here. Something we were explaining to some visitors this week. They were thrilled that someone could love their country enough to try and make a go of living here, and not only that but living out in a very rural area. Anyway more of that later.

One dead wild boar

One of the stories I have been trying to tell in an academic paper, is the story of the issues with wild boar management where we live - I have been working on that most of the week yet again. It is still an ongoing story because we have also had more pig damage a few days ago, but we have also had some success - Ian found a dead pig on our land just before the weekend. It had been shot, but we are not quite sure why a hunter hasn't collected it yet, despite our calls, via a friend of ours. It was tempting just to take it, because it was still fresh and butcher it ourselves, but there are issues with African Swine Fever, which as I have mentioned before that has reached our area now. We have no idea what is supposed to happen with regards to testing of the animals first before consumption and we don't know what to look for to see if it was healthy before being shot. Only this week there have been moves by the government to increase hunting to reduce numbers of wild boar, to try and halt the advance of the very infectious disease. The phrase "trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted" comes to mind. Maybe they should have taken more notice of my report three years ago. Oh well! Anyway, if the hunters do not collect it by tomorrow, Ian will call the authorities (or at least try to arrange it) and ask them what to do with it. It is worrying to have a large dead animal so close to our sheep. Fortunately it has been cool enough not to attract predators yet, but the weather is due to warm up and our snow has disappeared.

A night's worth of damage

A little more damage here too. Possibly the work of the now
dead pig

A snowy winter scene. 

Unfortunately that isn't the only death this week, one of our chickens that was hatched this year died. We had one sick one, but she is picking up. The one Ian found today hadn't even appeared sick yesterday - typical of chickens really. At least this year we haven't lost any other chicks - apart from those we had to dispatch after hatching. With those we knew from experience it was not fair to let them suffer and their chances of recovery were low. We also appear to have lost another chicken from the hen house, but she wouldn't always go in at night and so we half expected to lose her to a fox or something like that one day. She was a smart chicken but not smart enough to realise that it is not safe to be outside all night on a regular basis.

Mari and Chanel

At least the alpacas are doing well and the new ones settling in nicely now. They seem to have got the hang of the evening routine and managing to get some grain to eat instead of losing out to the others. Veronica has also largely stopped chasing Mari, much to our relief. The new ones seem to be okay when we have visitors - something they were probably used to on the Estonian farm - but Chanel is not happy when I treat her foot. For such a little animal she takes some holding. At least her foot looks like it is healing. I just hope that the warmer but wetter weather we are expecting doesn't make it worse. Hopefully as she settles down, it will heal itself anyway. It could well have been a reaction to the stress of the move. At least they are all enjoying being out on the grass again, now the snow has disappeared - at least for the time being.

I forgot to take a picture of this last week. This was on the
sideboard when I got home. The pompom dandelion was
a gift from a teacher earlier on in the year, but made a nice
touch to the message.

The nights are now very long and even longer when we don't have electric. Our lights suddenly dimmed shortly after our evening meal on Sunday night. I was looking out of the kitchen window as they dimmed and saw a very blue glow light up the sky. Twice more the electric came on and then disappeared with the same eerie glow from outside. We ended up with a very hygellig two hours, especially as we lit some candles in our Danish candleholders. They were a gift for hosting a lovely young lady whose parents lived in Africa who she couldn't get to see that year. She was a friend of our oldest son from his time at an Efterskole that was run from a Bible College in Kolding, Denmark. (For my non-Danish friends a short explanation might be required. Hygellig is a Danish word that encapsulates a cosy, evening in with candles and a log fire in a very relaxed atmosphere. An Efterskole is a boarding school for 14-18 year olds, that allows them to develop themselves or finish off their primary education whilst they decide what to do with their future). It also seemed appropriate to have to light candles for the beginning of advent.

Ian concentrating hard on his spinning

The long nights though means more time for other pursuits like sitting on the internet - we do too much of that already! It also means that Ian has had a chance to do some carding and spinning. At least he has got the spinning wheel I bought up and working and I don't think the yarn is too bad at all that he has spun. It was a bit over twisted but I think it is quite even really. Thicker than some one with experience might manage, but that is only to be expected and to be honest I actually like it thicker. We ended up plying the two bobbins together with the drop spindle as the yarn was a bit thick for the spinning wheel to handle. The yarn is now stretched out on a gadget for making hanks or for holding a hank of wool while winding up a ball of wool. All gadgets I happen to have due to my love of all things crafty and a history of craft making in the family. Both my grandmothers were avid knitters, embroiderers and cake decorators.

The resulting yarn

Sometimes our stories cross with those of others and so it is a joy to interact with those who have been part of my life in the past for one reason or another, especially when those connections cross the generations and even span the globe. One young friend contacted me from Ecuador to talk about universities and my experience of online studying. We have been in touch on a regular basis, but I still think it is amazing to carry on a friendship from such distances. Another re-connection is via facebook with a young lady who I used to take care of as a baby, so quite a while ago. Her mum was my children's teacher at school and she asked me if I would look after her little one. I wasn't a childminder at the time and was quite thrilled that she asked. My son let me know that the baby I once looked after was now getting engaged and so I thought I would send a friend's request and was chuffed that she accepted.

Tellus

Despite having the paper to sort out, I took the opportunity to have a weekend off. I think having a clear head helped to get the paper done quicker today and ready to post tomorrow morning. The first day I did the mundane things like tidying and processing. All the apples are now processed into pulp and juice and the willow herb leaves stripped off the stems for tea and that completes the processing for the year. It is a nice feeling. There are still beetroot and some turnips and swedes in the ground, but they are mainly for feed anyway and if we get them dug up will be stored in sawdust and not processed. If we don't get them all dug up, the sheep will be enjoying the beetroot when they are moved to their winter quarters.

Peedo eating hay in the shelter. He is so dark he is actually
quite hard to photograph at times

I was digging up a few beetroot when I saw some people walking onto the land. It wasn't the nicest of weather for a hike and so I was a little surprised. My surprise grew though as more and more people came up. I hadn't heard any car doors slamming and so was not prepared for anyone. It turned out to be a Latvian company who organise trips, they do walking trips in the mountains in summer and walks around Latvia in winter. The guide couldn't speak English, but there were a few who could. They were mainly from Riga and were interested in visiting our alpacas. I handed them over to Ian and we spent an interesting half an hour chatting. As it was late in the afternoon they had to head off as night was starting to close in and we would be preparing to put the animals away soon too.

Our boys favourite hang out - the feeder

One lady wanted to adopt Agnese who was being a star performer as usual. Many of them were interested in our story of why we were in Latvia and one lady in particular was very interested in possibly organising a school trip because she worked for a secondary school in Riga as an English teacher. Exactly the sort of thing we were planning on doing. She has taken my card and so we hope something will come from that. Ian will need a card though soon as it would be better for people to have his details - he is more likely to be around for those kinds of outings.

A happy smiley face

There are other stories going on all around us of course. The stories from the middle east are brought home to us via the refugee crisis and the bombings in Paris. Only they never were just the issues of the middle east but a complex story of meddling by Westerners and local realities. It was Westerners who drew up the modern day maps that cut through traditional tribal areas and that doesn't even mention the failed attempts to change the leadership by getting rid of the despotic leaders without a clear plan as to what would fill their place. It is the power of the story though that continues to fuel the war, from the stories that are told to recruit new followers to Daesh (or IS or ISIS or ISIL) to those that Western leaders use to encourage greater engagement through bombing. The question is though who benefits from all this chaos, especially when the stories get mixed up? Refugees are not terrorists, they are escaping terrorists. That seems to get lost in the whirling round of rumour and counter-rumour.

I went on an art course at the local school this week. It was
quite a simple task to do a painting with colours from the
cool end of the spectrum. I have done this kind of thing
a few times before, so it was  nice and relaxing. 

Daesh certainly benefit from the fear-mongering, Putin benefits from the chaos in Europe as it keeps the focus off him and what he is doing, it benefits the right-wing, fascist parties (who scare me more than terrorists do) and it benefits politicians who are trying to appear like they are doing something to show leadership. I am grateful though when I hear clear voices that state that bombing is not going to achieve what we want it to achieve. I am pleased when it doesn't sound like appeasement - hoping that the "bad" boys will suddenly become "good" after a bit of talking to, as that is not going to work either. Leadership is needed, talking is needed and possibly sanctions too and not just against the "bad guys" but against some that we in the West have been supporting and yet turning a blind eye to what goes on in their countries, like Saudi Arabia. I cannot pretend to have all the answers, but I have seen enough of the past to know what doesn't and on the evidence (whatever that is) bombs do not work.  (An interesting story, "Do terrorists really think they are going to win?" on the BBC talks about the power of stories for terrorists in the past)

There are of course many current stories going on today that intersect with this like the Paris talks and creative demonstrations, but that is perhaps a story for another day.

Finally home!

The favourite storie "The singing merlaid" No that isn't
a spelling mistake on my part, nor the book's.

I had a lovely time with my daughter and her family in the Lake District. It was nice to relax with them and without her and her husband having to gather some energy together to do more renovation work on their house. The weather could have been better though. Tuesday morning we were very lazy and got up late – I was the last one up, which is rather unusual when I’m in the UK. I was treated to a full English breakfast, bacon, scrambled eggs, beans and sausage. We then set off for a soggy walk around the village of Grasmere where we were staying. I am surprised how many outdoor clothing shops there are in the Lake District, even in such a small place like Grasmere. I can understand the craft and gift shops, there are so many visitors mainly in the summer. Maybe the visitors are not prepared for the weather and need clothing shops, or maybe people combine their days out with stocking up, which I suppose makes sense.

First taste of baby rice. He didn't need
any convincing that this is the way to
go. He got the hang of it after the first
mouthful.

In the afternoon my granddaughter really needed a proper afternoon sleep and so my daughter, her little one and I left our son-in-law at home to supervise and so he could get on with a bit of work that had to be done. We went off to Ambleside in the, by now, torrential rain. Fortunately it eased off when we got there, which was a good job as I was struggling to pay for the car park with my card. In the end I decided on cash but didn’t have quite enough for the length of time I thought we might need. A young gentleman asked how much I needed and gave me a £1.10 that he had in his hand. I was quite shocked at his generosity, but it felt good to know there are people like that out there, especially after all the horror we have heard about this week. The rain held off enough to do some shoe shopping and when it started to pour down again we just headed for a coffee shop. We had an afternoon tea and I had a slice of Borrowdale teabread with crumbly Lancashire cheese. The teabread was a bit like a rich fruitcake, but not as rich as a Christmas cake and went well with the cheese. I do miss Lancashire cheese, as it is a cheese I used to eat a lot of when I was younger.

And of course if the camera is out, a certain little
lady wanted her photograph taking too

Wednesday was my last day in the Lake District and we had arranged to meet up with my parents since they travel up to The Lakes often to visit and I needed a lift to my son-in-law’s mother’s house where I would stay overnight before heading off to the airport the next morning, so that worked out nicely. I had fish and chips just to finish off my holiday and because I had been pretty good all the time I was in the UK and I shared an apple and cinnamon pie and custard with my mother – neither of us could eat much after our main meal. The weather though was dreadful, wet and windy. My parents told us that the rain on the motorway was so bad that people had slowed right down for quite a stretch of the time, which is really unusual in the UK. On our side of the hills the rain wasn't quite so heavy but the roads were starting to flood again. My daughter sent me a picture of what it was like a couple of days after I left, with snow on the hills and bright blue sunshine. Typical!

Not quite the UK, but a rather chilly Latvia at -9C (16F).
That is not snow on the ground but frost

We stopped off at my parent’s house for something to eat and to avoid the manic traffic around Manchester. I really do not miss the horrendous UK traffic. I much prefer the “four cars is rush hour or a funeral”, type of traffic. In fact we find from our home it is possible to go all the way to the outskirts of the capital Riga and only see one or two cars – a trip of 100km (60 miles). My parents dropped me off, spinning wheel and all – I hadn't had that long to see them, but it was all that was possible this time around. It is a little tricky trying to juggle who to see when my own family are growing so much. There was only time  to sort out the taxi for the morning and have a chat about our children growing up with my son-in-laws mother before heading for bed.

Some serious ice crystals

The next morning I was a little worried about the two dogs in the kitchen, not that they were aggressive or anything like that, but enthusiastic. When I went down in the morning they were very excited to see me at first and then I told them to go to bed and much to my amazement, they did as they were told and stayed there. I think they decided I was too boring to bother with. As I was eating breakfast I had a text to say the taxi was on its way – no time for toast then! About ten minutes later I then got another text to say the taxi was outside and gave me the details of colour, type and registration of the car. Much better than having to constantly watch for it and then wait for the horn to sound – which no one appreciates in the morning. The taxi driver and I chatted all the way to the airport. He would like to retire to somewhere hot and agreed that rush hour in the UK is not great. Taxi drivers in his company will only do one rush hour shift, they cannot take two, so they either start early and finish early or start later in the day and finish later, so that they only cover the one rush hour. Can’t say as I blame them really.

You get the idea!

Ian met me at the airport and as usual he stood near the back, but something was a bit odd. First he seemed to be holding something and also he was stood further back than normal. As I got closer I realised he was holding a paper and on it he had put Griezites Alpakas with the outline we use for a design and my name on it. Next I realised he was stood with all the other people who go to airports to collect visitors for companies and such like. I burst out laughing. He said it was so long since he had seen me, he thought he might need some help to find me, plus it was free advertising. Cheek of the man!

I love the picture of the frost on the fence posts 

Finally getting home has meant doing some ordinary things like spending time with my husband. We needed a bit of time to talk about all the things that have happened over the last month and our thoughts and plans. There was also the ordinary things like washing floors and washing clothes. Making meals. It has been nice to have some time off from all those things and in an odd way it is nice to come back home to them too. The spinning wheel I brought back from England seems to have travelled well, no breakages, but it may have swelled a little at my daughter's rather damp rental home. They will be glad to get out of there.

The frost has also transformed these logs

It hasn't all been getting back to the ordinary ways of life, we have also taken a day trip up to Estonia to see another alpaca farm. It was a last minute arrangement. They have had alpacas a little longer than we have and they have more infrastructure developed than we have. They also have a more positive local mayor who is willing to work with them and aid them in their development. Unfortunately I can't say the same about the local authorities around here. We spent a great time at the farm and chatted for ages. The Norwegian husband said it was good to talk with other "special people". We do indeed have to be a bit different to take the routes we are doing and it was wonderful to hear someone with a much more business-like mind, still working out where they are going as they go along without a preconceived plan. We all agreed that if we had done what we first thought we would do, we wouldn't be enjoying what we are doing now. The routes have taken some surprising turns.

The new fence posts in position around the paddock of the
newest alpaca house

I read a few blogs on a regular basis and one them is full of gorgeous photographs with inspirational or thoughtful quotes. The quote this week really struck a chord with me and went beautifully with the photo of the sea (so do take a look at the link and the photo).

I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know – unless it be to share our laughter.
We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.
For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful. It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves.”
― James Kavanaugh, There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves

Just before putting away time the snow started. We maybe
have about a centimetre or two now.

Our youngest cat taking advantage of
the heater being on

On that note I shall finish and then take off to a friend's house who I have not seen in far too long for a nice chat and a cup of tea.

Are we nearly there yet?

"We are going on holiday" but what does that mean to a
two year old? Hahaha

We are on holiday! We being me, my daughter, her husband and two young children. Being on holiday though is quite a difficult concept for a two year old - the baby is oblivious to this anyway, all he knows is he has the attention of three adults in rotation. My two year old granddaughter, however, hasn't quite grasped that we are on holiday, all day, every day while we are away from her home. She has somehow managed to mix up being on holiday with the holiday cottage and so she thinks we are going on holiday every time we set off to go back to the cottage.

A tad damp don't you think? This is Lake Windermere

The weather has not been particularly good. In fact it took us an hour and a half yesterday to do a thirty minute journey due to the number of floods. This meant there were several places with only single file traffic. There was also a lorry stuck at one place it meant the cars had to drive on the pavement to get passed. If you take a look at the video on this link, you can see the lorry and the cars trying to get by. It is a good job we came up in the Land Rover.

Painting a picture on the touch screen

We decided to go to the Beatrix Potter Attraction in Bowness on Windermere, since it was indoors out of the rain and might entertain a two year old. The place is only small but they do pack in a lot of little scenes and my granddaughter was quite happy to see them all. A more boisterous, active child might not, but she is into books and has a good level of conversation for her age and so we had quite a chat as we went round. Her favourite part though was a touch screen table where she "painted" a picture. It was amusing to watch her use her finger to pick up the paint and then dot it onto the picture. She kept looking at her finger as if she really had paint on there before daubing the picture with it. Being out of season it was also nice and quiet and she had no competition for the activity. I dread to think what it would have been like in high season. Since she is getting quite bossy just lately (over tired we think) she would have probably told everyone that they would just have to wait. She tells people this with an over exaggerated shrug of her shoulders and by flapping her hands to lend her full weight of authority to the matter, as only a two year old can do.

No pictures this time of the Duddon. It is a bit difficult from
the back of a car and the roads are too narrow to keep
stopping and I think it would have tried the patience of a
certain little lady. Anyway typical stonework from the
Lake District

Today we went to the Duddon Valley. It is one of the prettiest and yet under visited valleys of The Lake District. At one end it has two passes that are some of the hairiest roads in the country with so many tight hairpin bends, both of them are also pretty steep. Hardknott into Eskdale, which we didn't take is the steepest. Coming over Wrynose, the other pass, at the top end of the valley it is fairly bleak and open, with many of the traditional hardy Herdwick sheep determined to make life difficult for drivers by sauntering along the road or trying to dart out in front of them. We had to crawl slowly towards a cattle grid before they cleared out of our way at one point. I am very familiar with the Duddon (you can see pictures from an earlier trip here, including the Herdwick sheep), as my Godmother used to own a hill farm in the area and we would pay regular visits as a family during my childhood. I often wondered if I would have been able to cope with life as a hill farmer in The Lake District and would loved to have given it a go and I guess it is one of the reasons for having our land and alpacas now. Just need to spend more time there at some point.

The weather might be dreary, but I still
love the Lakeland scenes, this is
Grasmere near where we are staying

Despite coming in from a different road to the one I was familiar with as a child, I still managed to find the track to the farm where my Godmother lived when I first knew her. I say when I first knew her, I arrived as a little baby to see her for the first time. I took my little granddaughter for a little walk while her baby brother was being fed and showed her the beck (brook) where I would fall in on a regular basis whilst trying to "fish" - I never caught anything, except perhaps a cold, but I don't think it really did me any harm. It was too cold and wet to go on a hike with a toddler and a baby today, perhaps another time, so I couldn't show them the isolated farmhouse that my Godmother retired to, up the very steep track. We had a picnic in the car though further along the valley at Ulpha bridge, a popular spot for those in-the-know and then headed to Broughton where we had a drink and a piece of cake (I am on holiday and it is back to the cake free diet later).

She wanted her photo taken, but all I
got was this serious look. Those are
her paintings in her rucksack. All 4 of
them

Before we came up to The Lakes it has been filled with a similar routine to last week, with an activity in the morning such as toddlers, messy play or pre-school and then my daughter doing some more renovation work while I baby sat in the afternoon and the evenings. All of us, including my son-in-law who was working on the house in the evenings, were pretty tired by the time we stopped to come on holiday and although they have a lot of work still to do, it has been nice to sleep in a bit and not have to be up late in the evening trying to get things done. I did try and help my daughter whilst the two year old was at pre-school but of course the baby had other plans. At least I moved a pile of tiles and picked up the loose plastic spacers, the sum total of my physical work on the renovations to their home.

A walk home from pre-school on one
of the few sunny days

Back home in Latvia Ian has been trying to do some more sorting of the third alpaca house. He has bought fence posts and on a particularly rainy day went to Jekabpils the big town to get some U-nails to attach the fence and a hole borer to make putting fence posts in easier. The weather hasn't been kind to him either and so the top pond is full and he hasn't got the fence in yet. He has wired in some lights and sockets into the alpaca house - next will be the kitchen and bathroom - only joking. Our plan will be to have an area where we can support any pregnant female should we need to and so already having lights and sockets means we can connect up an extension cable from the greenhouse without a problem if necessary.

Looking backwards down the hill towards the town

The leaves are still on the hedges here,
but I am guessing back home they
won't be

Ian has also being helping some neighbours to transport a couple of wild horses. These must have been a little wilder than the ones I saw recently and one did not want to cooperate and go in. It did eventually but a rear triangle got damaged and our neighbours have taken the broken one away to get another. I do hope they do and don't forget about it.

I love the colours of autumn

A house nestled in the valley with the stone walls

He has also been having some minor issues with the newbies, which is only to be expected as they settle in. One issue though is not so minor and that is our largest female alpaca, Veronica, is still taking exception to one of the newbies. Ian has been locking Veronica away in the training pen or separately in the paddock while the others are out in the field until we find out a way of dealing with the behaviour. At least the rest of the herd have accepted the new ones though. Hopefully we will get a reply from someone who deals with alpaca behaviour fairly soon with some suggestions as to what we can do.

A fern growing naturally in the moss covered stone walls

As you maybe able to tell from the title of the blog, my little granddaughter was not terribly patient in the car on the way up. We were hoping she would sleep a little longer than she did. The refrain "Are we nearly there yet", uttered by so many children on long journeys could equally be uttered by many on their life journeys. For some the refrain refers to the idea that the world will get worse and worse and worse and then Jesus will come back and sort it all out. I confess I believed that once, but I don't now. I believe that Jesus wants to sort it out through people, just like he has always done, as far as I am concerned. According to statistics the world is not getting worse, it is actually getting better in terms of crime rates and poverty. The world has always been a dangerous place to some degree somewhere. Catastrophe, as we have unfortunately seen in Paris but also elsewhere in this world has been just around the corner, but so has goodness, so has mercy, so has love. There are real hurting humans out there of many colours, who need other loving humans to give them homes, food but above all dignity. If we stop seeing others as barbarous backward heathens, or some variation of that and try to see the humanity and the needs, maybe we will stop thinking that all we need to do is bomb the life out of each other.

Not sure how much longer the iconic telephone boxes will
be around and so I thought I had better take a picture

A house on a grander scale

When I was younger we were afraid that the Soviets would set off a nuclear bomb and obliterate us in our English homes. What I didn't realise was that the same fear existed on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Different groups of people expecting annihilation from the other, separated by fear and a lack of knowledge of who the others were. If I could say anything that might make a difference, I would say go into the highways and byways and invite someone from a totally different background to eat with you. Talk about hopes and dreams and aspirations and see how similar they are. One by one around the table discovering how human nature longs for safety, hope and like I've already said, dignity.

The joys of little ones

This is the spinning wheel I
purchased the other week. I
think it is an Ashford traveller,
although the pictures that I
could find on the net, show a
slightly different arrangement.

It has been the sort of eventful week that any mother of young children will recognise and all too familiar to me, if a little hazy due to being memories from the dim and distant past. My little two year old granddaughter was less shy with me than my little two year old grandson the other week, but that was because I have chatted a little more with her via Skype. However, early on in the week she came downstairs with her daddy crying her little heart out. Daddy was going to work and her mummy was busy, so I took her in my arms to give her a cuddle, but she was inconsolable. Mummy took over and gave her breakfast, but she was still not right, so she was given a dose of medicine and a cuddle with mummy. Next thing we knew my little granddaughter threw up all over the floor, narrowly missing her little brother. As I was due to go out to meet someone for coffee, we had a rapid re-think and I offered to take the baby with me, while my daughter cleaned up - generous offer heh!

The cards my granddaughter made

I haven't left my daughter to do all the cleaning up, honest! In fact I have spent quite a bit of the week babysitting and washing up while she gets on with some renovations, as it has taken them far longer than they hoped. As my granddaughter took a few days to recover and the baby is only a few months old, it has been a fairly easy job because they have spent much of the afternoon asleep and go to bed early. There has been just a little entertaining in the afternoons between my granddaughter getting up after her nap and mummy and daddy coming home. Today we made cards and did some glueing and sticking - something I haven't done with little ones in a long time and I was desperately trying to remember how to help a little one learn to use scissors. It was rather amusing though that she got far more absorbed in cutting up pieces of paper than actually sticking the paper onto a sheet of lining paper to make a picture.

Boots and wellies drying on the radiators

I had forgotten how many sets of clothes you can get through with little ones. My little grandson has puked up on me and peed into the turn ups of my jeans. My granddaughter has soaked me with jumping in puddles and it was so wet today on our walk that my boots started leaking and my trousers wet through again. In a walk to the shops the other day, my little granddaughter went through the biggest puddle imaginable and it went well over her little wellies, but oh she had fun! A couple walking past at the time laughed and the gentleman commented "Well what are wellies for!" Absolutely right of course. I have also been greatly amused by employing the tricks I learnt as a young mum. Little one walking and another in the pram plus a steep hill? No problem, ask the little one to help in pushing the pram. Little one giving up walking due to being tired? No problem, 1-2-3, whee and run a little way up. Hehehe! Little ones are so gullible - most of the time.

We eventually got some cut pieces of paper stuck on some
paper

Little ones are also funny with the things they come out with. It was hilarious the other day when she sat in the pushchair and going round the shop saying "Happy Christmas Everyone." My daughter is not really sure where she got that from, probably a tv programme as she has quite a remarkable memory recall. I read her a library book one day and then the next day, she was reading a book to her little brother and recalling some of what I had read to her. She definitely wasn't reading the words, she is too young for that.

Who are you looking at? Brencis and Estelle 

Back tracking a little, I mentioned I was going for coffee with a friend. It was a facebook friend I had probably never met before, which might sound an odd thing to say. My facebook friend and I have many mutual friends and I used to live only a few miles away from where my daughter lives now, so we may have bumped into each other before but not remembered. We met up because we seem to often agree on issues we talk about on facebook and both think quite a lot about various things and so we had quite a philosophical chat for easily a couple of hours. A little different from the level of conversation with a two year old, although not always - you can have quite deep and meaningful chats with a two year old, but they haven't a clue what you are talking about usually and so it is great fun. The baby was very good whilst we were chatting and slept most of the time, he also happily gurgled to  one of the waitresses at one point, as well as joining in with our deep conversation, as only a baby knows how.

Peedo

Ian has also been chatting for hours on end, mind you, it was all on one day when he took a trip up to Estonia to collect three alpacas and a friend had agreed to accompany him. We decided it was going to be too expensive to get alpacas from England and we hadn't heard anything from the farm that Ian had visited in England anyway, so he contacted the people we met back in August in Estonia to see if they would be willing to sell any. We wanted coloured alpacas to increase the range of natural fibres we could generate, because at the moment the choice is white or cream, in other words almost white. They agreed to sell us three alpacas, a dark chocolate brown, almost black, called Peedo (after a neighbour to the Estonian farm who turned 70 years old on the day he was born), a dark toffee coloured brown (Chanel) and a white with brown spots (Mari). By the time they are bred with our white alpacas we should get a fair range of colours along the spectrum. Exciting, but we will have to wait until next year to breed them and so it will only be 2017 when we get to know what colours we will get.

Although he looks sort of black, you can see he is not quite

Chanel on the left and Mari on the right

For the first day Ian put the new alpacas into our newly built alpaca house, to give them a little time to settle down from their trip and get used to him before introducing them to our herd. Ian then decided to introduce them in the evening on the basis that the alpacas often settle down for the night and they might be less likely to react to the new ones. First of all he took Peedo on a harness and tied him up behind the boys alpaca house. He put the boys away as usual and then waited for them to settle down before introducing Peedo. Tellus was not happy with the introduction and tried to mount Peedo, but Herkules our oldest alpaca got between them. He stamped his authority and wouldn't let Tellus do anything. So despite the fact that Tellus is our intact male, he is not the boss. Peedo is such a little fella though compared to our other ones. The girls were okay, but Veronica does not like Mari for some reason. I am sure they will settle down soon and nothing too bad beyond a bit of spitting has been going on.

I think this is quite a cute photo of Mari

Peedo and Turbjørn. You can see how much smaller Peedo
is compared to our other alpacas in this one. 

The next day the new alpacas had to get to grips with learning the ropes of being put away. Of course they did not get it at first. Peedo very nearly did but stopped in the door way then backed off. The two girls didn't even bother going in. Ian got the harness, a stick for guiding them and a long rope. He managed to corner Peedo and get the harness on him, then put him away. With the girls he locked the others on one side and opened the other door, Mari, bless her just walked straight in but Chanel just ran around the alpaca house making a noise. Ian tried to corner her with the rope but she charged through it and the end got caught on her leg which stopped her so he could get hold of her. She is a noisy thing though apparently. During the day I and the grandchildren had a lovely chat with Ian via Skype and we even got to see the new alpacas because Ian took the computer up with the mobile wifi. Neat!

Chanel and Snowdrop. Not quite sure who the other one
is, but probably Agnese

Ian also managed to shift the sheep, they escaped from the poultry fence again like the last time we moved them. The plastic its wrapped in was on the floor and the wind caught it and spooked them. However they ran right into where he was putting the fence and stayed there while he finished putting the wire on fortunately.

Veronica at the back and Estelle looking on with a good
deal of curiosity. We think Estelle might indeed be
pregnant as she is starting to fill out at the back now.

Besides settling in newcomers and moving sheep he has also had visitors. The visitors came the day after the newcomers arrived and were not allowed to actually go in and see them but were able to look over the door, at least they got to see that alpacas are not just white, but a variety of colours. There were 15 children and their parents and it sounded like they had a lot of fun trying to feed carrots to the alpacas. As expected the older boy alpacas were not terribly fussed with the visit but Agnese and Brencis were great with the children and allowed the children to pet them and feed them carrots. We know the children enjoy the visits as there was a lovely write up in the paper about the visit by one of the local schools. Three children had written their impressions of the day with one writing "Alpacas are beautiful, interesting, intelligent animals with a white fur coat." We are obviously giving them a good impression of what they are like then.