It's all go in Patouland.

Once again circumstances have conspired to keep me out of the blogging chair. Number one job has been full on all week and I was looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend. Unfortunately further bad news from the Patouwagon top mechanic was forthcoming. 'It's very broken' he said. 'Give me all your money and I can fix it' he said. Actually being a top bloke he said 'Get a new one'.

The upshot is that Sue, Angus and myself were traipsing from garage to garage all day yesterday in search of the next 'Patouwagon'. Rather excitingly (it has been a long time) we have found a replacement and I will be collecting it on Tuesday. Obviously another Land Rover Discovery, which in the eyes of Angus and me is a big, big boys toy! He was so excited that he took my mobile phone to bed with him last night because I had used it to take a photo of the 'new' Disco. Ahh bless.

After getting home it was a quick change and then out for the evening. We spent a very pleasant evening with Ivan and Gill of Old Stour Alpacas. Old Stour who, I hear you ask? Ivan and Gill are quietly and carefully building up a very nice herd of black and grey alpacas and they are top people. Even though Ivan cheats at barbecuing with a big flash gas jobby, but hey, so do a lot of people! Very nice nosh it was too!

This week we are into shearing mode. James Dixon will be with us in Patouland on Saturday to shear the massed ranks of the Patou, Tisbury, Glenside and Orchard Alpacas herds. It is the earliest that we have ever sheared and there is a little bit of worry about the great British weather but at the moment the weather is good and if it does turn nasty I will commandeer a nearby barn. The main reason we are shearing early is that we want to start mating soon afterwards. We didn't want to get into mating and then put the girls through the stress of shearing. So it will be full on next week. You may remember that we took most of the herd through winter 'empty' to reset the herd mating regime. Now the day job is really going to start getting in the way, mumble mumble mumble.

Other news here is that we seem to have had a rodent explosion since Bob our cat was put to sleep a few months ago. He must have been out every night slaughtering his little heart out as since he's gone the population seems to have increased dramatically. My suggestion of sitting outside with a headtorch and my shotgun all night has been pooh poohed so we now have to plan our attack.

Operation Rodent Reduction will get into full swing following a visit to Scats for some appropriate poison, traps and hopefully shiny things, with buttons or something, explosives maybe.....do they do rat bombs? Armageddon is coming. I have pinned a notice to the front porch warning all rodents to pack up and foxtrot oscar so they can't say they didn't know it was coming. I have already called in the military for support with Sergeant Angus Steele heading up a crack team of paratroopers. I tell you, don't mess with him he looks nasty!

They won't know what's hit them.