Emerging from the murk.

Good morning everyone! I am feeling pretty damn chipper this morning it is almost as if I have been reborn!

Patou Rico, a lovely friendly little fellow.

If I can explain: I have been in the tight, pale green, all-encompassing grip of the dreaded manflu for the past few days. My last posting four days ago shows that I was not well. I have just read it again, it is dull and uninteresting, the only blog posting I have ever posted not to receive a comment, hopefully not my usual fare but you see I was not myself people, I was possessed by the God of cold sweats and jelly legs. For the last three days I have been as weak as a newborn cria, I have been absolutely pathetic. The tiny little mewing noises have been interspersed with the hugely loud and wet sneezes, every movement has brought on a little groan and a sigh as I have grumpily carried out the bare minimum of chores and tasks. Much crap television has been watched. Soup, and spoon food generally has been consumed, we are now major shareholders in Lemsip Maximum Strength. Every lap of the fields to check on the alpacas has felt like a marathon. At one point I felt like lying down in the field and giving up, letting the persistent evilness that is the Lord of Manflu take me away to his green and unpleasant land. But I didn't.......................ok enough of this drivel. I have had manflu, I was a pathetic sight but I am now out the other side. I am still full of snot, had a marvellous wife waking coughing fit at 4.30 this morning, but the weakness has seemingly gone. I am feeling better! Time to think ahead!

Patou Rafiki, eyes newly trimmed, can see again!

As I write this the rain is coming down, well across a long way first but eventually down as the stiff winds hurl it across the fields. The alpacas are fine, they are very well fleeced  and the rain will do them good. It is not cold and they need a wash to get the dust and sweat out of them. This weekend we are off to the SWAG Show near Bristol. Surely too far away for those show-offs from up north to travel!
The SWAG show is normally a very high quality show, the South West houses the largest proportion of alpacas in the land and I expect there will be 300 plus alpaca competing. I am looking forward to it. I have though, learned my lesson about pre-show boasting. Although two rosettes were bagged at the Futurity, I had perhaps set my sights a little high. Still, the Mighty Patou Show Team has been asked to rediscover it's crimp and go once more in to battle. This time the massed ranks of combatants will be bolstered by a big boy. Not another junior, nor an intermediate, no, this weekend will be the first outing at a UK show for Qjori. He has only got 6 and a half months fleece on him but he grows it quickly and he does, well I may have mentioned it before, look pretty magnificent to me! Ruby, Roger Resilient, Rico and Reeya will also be going. It will be nice to meet up with people again and will be nice to cast an eye over some pretty good alpacas. It will be a 4am start on Saturday morning and we are going as a family, even Angus who varies between extreme alpaca boredom and mild disinterest has asked to come (pound to a pinch of doodah he'll be fed up by lunchtime). It should be fun.

(Early readers of this blog may have noticed the lack of pictures and the proliferation of spelling mistakes. I pressed the wrong button and it published when I hadn't finished. Then AOL crashed. Then I had to do the school run. Then AOL crashed again. I can't tell you how close I was to doing something very silly with the laptop!)