An Interesting Easter Visitor

We have had rather a lazy Easter weekend here. Largely because we are both feeling a little off par. Paul has Shingles and has been started on a course of anti-viral treatment. Understandably he is not on top form. For anyone not familiar with the condition; Shingles is caused by “the stress of living with me!!” I think he was joking. He has however gone back to work today…maybe not!

We did manage to get some fencing finished on Saturday. We are pretty slick at getting the rails on the posts these days. It has taken us two years of practising before managing to do this without any major disagreements. The arguments were usually due to the fact that if I dared to venture an opinion Paul used to constantly remind me that it was HE who was the engineer. I have now learned just to follow instructions and keep my hands off his tools…if it gets the job done!

We did have a very interesting visitor yesterday; Nicola, a fashion designer, who is originally from Cumbria but is now living and working in London called in to meet her clients (I think that was Minnie and the weedlings!) Nicola graduated from Manchester and has recently completed a post graduation course specialising in knitwear design. She has come up with some very exciting ideas for our alpaca fleece that I hadn’t even thought about. When we had spoken earlier, I had explained to her what I didn’t want but had left Nicola free to bring in her own ideas, which has worked really well. All very exciting stuff.

We gave Hoity Toity her second Vitamin B12 injection at the weekend. I am pleased to report that she is much improved. I have the bruise on my shin to prove it. One impromptu hands on condition scoring too many…fair enough, but it did feel like biting the hand that feeds you!

I did catch up on some reading at the weekend. Having finished Ideal Alpacas and Synthesis of a Miracle (Michael Safley) I started reading Alpaca and Llama Health Management (David Anderson & Claire Whitehead). This is a fantastic reference book but hardly one for reading from front to back. Paul found me asleep with the dog on my knee and the book on the floor!