The ups and downs.

It has been a strange past few weeks, we have had show success and complete and utter computer failure. So a month of ups and downs, a month of elation and a month of despair, a month of joy and unfettered fury. I'm exhausted really. However, things are now looking pretty marvellous.

I will report on recent events.

Firstly, the North Somerset Show. The weather was set fair and the team was looking good as I set off at sparrow-fart, alone, the rest of the family barely rising to bid me farewell. A thrash down the A303 and a potter along some of deepest darkest Somerset's roads and we were there. The sun was coming out.

As usual, with the grey, black and brown classes following on from one another at the front end of the show I was a blur as I was in and out of the ring all morning. Now this is not a bad thing, a benefit of travelling alone, no-one else to don the white coat, I get to show them off, I love it!
Anyway, we had a superb morning, five animals entered, three first places, two seconds, one champion and one reserve champion. Perhaps it's all down to the handler after all?

The championship that we won was the grey male championship with Patou Wasimba, our lovely rose grey Qjori boy. Special in my eyes as he was the first cria that I helped being born in the most intimate of ways, i.e. up to the elbow! Here he is with his mum Sahara on the day I brought him into the world.

 

 

And here he is last month. I know I've posted this picture before, but I do happen to think Wasimba looks great especially as he is being held by number one son, Gus.  

 

I will endeavour to get a picture of him with his Sash when the weather perks up. I know, aren't you all lucky.

 

The reserve champion was another special boy, the spoiled brat himself, our resident delinquent drama queen, Tsar, reserve champion brown male. I was very pleased indeed with his result.

 

The other members of the team did their stuff, Instrumental (joint owned with the mighty Inca) was first placed junior brown male and Pinot and Spitfire both took second places in the junior black classes.

Since the show my laptop has died completely, meaning I have lost all my photographs, documents and worst of all my X factor audition tapes. Luckily I have a lot of pictures on my phone which have just been downloaded onto the new laptop. The old laptop sits forlornly nearby as I hope that one day I may be able to get some life back into it so that I may retrieve my 'stuff'. Still it was 5 years old and I now have a nice shiny new one so it's not all bad!

This week I am mostly preparing for the weekend and next week. Firstly on Sunday is shearing day. Colin Ottery is due in at 7.30am and luckily it appears that the weather gods are on our side. I will be putting up the marquee anyway, just in case. It is always a relief to get that day over and done with!

Then we are straight into set-up for the SWAG Show at The Royal Bath and West Show on Tuesday, my favourite show of the year. Gus and his chum George will be coming along for 4 days of the show and three nights of camping. We will of course be sticking to a strict vegetarian diet whilst we are there and I will be throwing myself into the life of a tee-totaller. Guffaw, guffaw, tee hee.

Right, that's enough of this drivel, I have to give a talk to the members of the Salisbury Poultry club this evening so must do some swatting up.

They don't like cricket......................

******************** WARNING EXPLICIT CRICKET REFERENCES**************

This blog post will read better if you have a basic understanding of the inner workings of the glorious game of cricket. 

It will read even better if you have followed the England cricket team through the ups and downs of the last 40 years, as have I. 

It will read even better still if you have a screw loose..............as have I.

Apologies to my friends on mainland Europe.

Readers from Australia and New Zealand need not comment.

Those of you who know us down here in Patouland will be aware that Gus is cricket mad and has a growing talent for the game. As his father and being even more cricket mad I see it as my fatherly duty to help him as much as I can.

So yesterday we loaded up the trailer (also doubles as a wicket keeper) with his cricket kit and headed off to the only flat strip of land for miles to get in some training. Gus had already mowed the strip and the stumps were in place. The wicket is in the field currently containing 9 weanling females. We were accompanied by our two keen fielders, Josh and Kira. 

Due to the unpredictable bounce from a very bumpy track and the potential for the out of condition bowler to bowl the odd beamer, Gus was fully padded up and ready for anything. Josh was ready to chase anything that moved and Kira, thinking we were going for a walk in the woods, was very excited.

We began with some gentle throw downs and were then surprisingly joined by 9 fielders at mid-off. Despite my request that they spread out a bit they refused, they were all going to field at mid-off. Fine, a bit odd and slightly selfish but fine, better than nothing. I decided to try and bowl to the very strong off-side field.

After a short while in which they proved to be of no use at all they decided, en masse, to move across to the leg side and field at short mid-wicket. Odd, very odd. Most of the time they weren't even watching the ball. Not only that but when the ball did go towards them they split like a shoal of fish and watched it go through the middle of them before reforming in front of it. Useless, absolutely useless.

I was bowling for most of the time and trying to set a field was very frustrating. 

Josh was no problem, he would hare after the ball from wherever he was and chase it down quickly. His throwing arm (leg) is no good though so he would have to run it back to me at the bowlers end each time. Except when he got tired and then he would drop the ball, lie down and give it a quick chew. Very shoddy behaviour. It wasn't going to take long for the ball to go out of shape.

Kira was even worse, she would amble after the ball, pick it up and drop it less than a second later before wandering off in search of some alpaca 'snacks'. Just less than a second was all it took for the ball to become completely encased in a sphere of Newfoundland slobber. I tried to put her out on the boundary at fine leg but she wouldn't go. No respect for the skipper at all.

However, the worst of them all was the one fielder that was basically made up of nine separate muppets who couldn't field for toffee and completely lost interest in the game. Eventually they wandered off and fielded at long on, where they started to eat the outfield. A short while later they abandoned the game and wandered through the open gate to the next paddock. Very bad form.

Just as well really as a few minutes later the bowler blew up as his bowling arm fell out of it's socket.

Solo at the Futurity.

The thing about big alpaca shows is that they send me a bit haywire for a week or so beforehand. I am fine when I get there, once the animals are unloaded a calmness descends across me but for a week prior to departure I go all a bit odd in the head.
So last week was no different in the build up to the biggest alpaca show ever to be held in the UK. The British Alpaca Futurity had a record number of over 440 alpacas entered into the two day show to be held at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry. We had also entered our biggest show team ever. Now eight alpacas doesn't sound much but we only have a small herd and an even smaller trailer. So proportionately eight alpacas was a lot.

As a result, a week before departure my mind started playing it's usual tricks on me. Sleep became difficult to come by and I was fidgety and restless day and night as my mind raced around in circles.
Nights were particularly annoying as two separate trains of thought kept my brain racing when it was supposed to be shutting down for the night. Firstly, the concern that I wasn't going to make it to Coventry. Mechanical failure, illness, acts of God were all things that I tried hard not to consider as I lay there trying to count lazy alpacas jumping over gates.
Secondly, and completely opposite in emotion to the first train of thought was the notion of what was going to happen when I got there. I can't tell you how many times I worried about how on earth I was going to cope when all eight of the Mighty Patou Show Team were required to be in the championship line up. Travelling solo (school and work keeping Sue and Gus at home) meant that I would need seven extra handlers to help.

So it was this ultra-optimistic and simultaneous gloomy pessimistic thought process that I battled with each night leading up to the show. Death or Glory. Nothing in between. It was exhausting!

As usual I made life difficult for myself on the way. I engaged the sat nav system and faithfully followed it for over 120 miles, then at the crucial moment when it was telling me to exit the motorway near Coventry I decided it was not to be trusted and that I would navigate the last stretch by instinct alone. What? Why? It's just me, it's what I do, I can't explain it, I am an idiot at times.
So, several minutes later I was to be found shouting obscenities at myself for being such a prat (I was using slightly stronger descriptive terminology) as I was stuck in a traffic jam, on a motorway north of Coventry, heading towards Manchester.

Anyway, having calmed down I arrived slightly later than planned and unloaded. Calmness descended, the animals were settled in for the night and all was well with the world.

Two show rings meant I had to be on the ball on Friday, the whole team would be in the ring leaving Saturday free for wandering around seeing what everyone else was up to.

First up I had Patou Nutmeg and Patou Pinot in the junior black class. I was absolutely delighted when Pinot was placed second behind the eventual female black champion. I could have packed up and gone home then, job done, happy days. Nutmeg picked up the 6th place rosette.
Thank you to Pinot's handler, Rebecca Oglesby, who obviously did a great job!

I was brought straight back to earth when Misket and I were asked (amongst others) to take the 'walk of shame' in a highly competitive junior brown female class.

Next up was Spitfire with a disappointing 6th and when Viking and I trudged out of the ring empty handed my head was starting to drop, this was tough. I wasn't the only person saying this was the toughest show ever.

Greys next and it was Wasimba time. We love Wasimba, he looks great and is a bit of a favourite in Patouland. I was delighted with a third place as there were some very big names behind us which always makes me smile. I don't have a picture of Wasimba in the ring but here's one I took yesterday, he deserves to be seen. Being expertly handled here by Gus.

It was then junior brown male time and I entered the ring with Inca Instrumental, a male bred by the Inca Lord, who we are lucky to co-own with them. He looked tremendous and I was happy enough with a 3rd place rosette out of a class of nine. First would have been better obviously but there we go. I looked at the winner, a cracking little Meon Valley boy and couldn't argue much with the result. Well I could have, but the decision had been made.

Tsar was all that was left and I have to say he was looking great. A big class of ten adult brown males and some serious competition meant a sixth place. Disappointing but redeemed by the judges oral reasoning who said some very nice things about him.

Job done and six rosettes bagged. Satisfied. Beer time.

Friday night was quite a long one. I was somehow kidnapped by a mottley bunch from the north, including some odd fellows from Scotland. I was very pleased to see that Dave and Joy from Apple Vale (thanks for the photos Dave!) also came along so that when the northerners became drunk and unintelligible I would still have someone to talk to.
It was a good night and although I did promise to write my whole blog in scottish, I just can't. It sounds too much like a pissed Glaswegian ranting about tatties or something.
So I will say this and this alone. Fair fa' your honest sonsie faces, ya wee scottish bastaaartts!

Thank you all for making it a great show.

Satisfied?

Satisfied (adjective)

Having achieved satisfaction, as of one's goal: content, fulfilled, gratified, happy. 

I have been busy since the BAS National Show, it has been a busy week. I have been physically active with one thing and another but I have been properly, mentally active, a lot. I have been thinking about alpacas probably too much since we got back from the show. Really, too much, an unhealthy amount of time has been spent thinking about fleece, conformation, colour, breeding and all things camelid. I am exhausted. 

First to the show. 

It was an absolute triumph. The show was organised very professionally, it ran like clockwork, the judging was, as far as I can make out, impeccable and the show finished early, enabling everyone to get away on time. Faultless. 

Congratulations to the organising team. The BAS has a show that is going from strength to strength and is something to be very proud of. I took this picture early on Saturday before it filled up, and it did fill up very well indeed. 

We had taken a team of five from the mighty Patou and we came away with five rosettes. 

The show format was different to previous years in that Saturday was 'ladies day' with all the female classes and Sunday was macho time, with all the male classes. It was a popular format and I hope it will be repeated.

So, Saturday was Patou Pinot's big moment in the junior black females. She just snuck in with a sixth place rosette so we were up and running. The black female championship was taken by the Mighty Inca, who seemed to win almost everything they entered (well they should do!) despite creating their own strong opposition.

The following day, with a slightly thick head after a late night was the turn of the boys.
First up for us was Patou Wasimba in the intermediate grey male class. I have to say that Wasimba is one of the best looking alpacas that we have bred and he seems to be getting better and better. He was up against strong opposition and secured the third place rosette for us. 

We then moved onto the black male classes and some very strong opposition. Patou Spitfire was up in the juniors and took a fifth place rosette. I can't have been pleased at the time as I don't appear to have a picture of that. Maybe I was knitting or something.

The next class entry for us was Patou Viking in the intermediate black male class. Before we left home Viking, standing in the sunshine, looked fabulous. He looked great going into the trailer with his travelling companions Wasimba and Tsar. 

When he came out of the trailer in Telford, Viking looked like he had been in the washing machine on a slow spit. Tsar, had clearly decided to molest Viking for four hours and then just to make things worse when put in our pen he continued to molest him, a lot, and he wasn't being very gentle. As a result Viking looked like he had been in a spit and slobber fight and Tsar had to be placed in his own individual pen. So when Viking was awarded fourth place I was genuinely delighted, in fact it made my day.

That meant that there was only one class left for us. Adult brown male. My favourite class. My nervous class. My twitchy, itchy, can't sit still class. It was Tsar Tsar Gabor time.

Did he behave himself? No, as usual he was a complete turd in the ring. In fact he took an instant disliking to the AstroTurf ring and walked as if he was on some seriously strong mind-bending drugs. I honestly thought he was stoned.  

However, he was awarded second place which I was pleased with. He was certainly the brownest in the class, but let's not get me on the subject of  'proper browns' please!

There were some great results at the show, particularly the Mighty Popham who seemd to be buried under a mountain of sashes even before they swooped in for Supreme Champion with Popham Havengore. In fact, with my SWAG hat on, I must say that SWAG members seemed to have a great show. 

Personally, as it says at the head of this blog I suppose I must settle for being satisfied with our results. It has, as I said earlier, given me a great deal to think about. We have the Futurity in two weeks time and the team will be bolstered by another three juniors. We will see how they get on. 

The real hard work will begin when the shows are over. We need to improve and for that to happen we need to look far and wide.

Bring on the basmati!

The excitement down here in Patouland is building slowly and steadily like a tsunami thousands of miles from the coast. The power is growing and soon the wave of excitement will be hurtling towards its intended destination, the journey will take another 3 days before with a deafening roar the mighty Patou show team will arrive at the Telford International Centre for the BAS National Show!

I really don't know how I can contain myself. The weather is set fair at the moment and the team is currently lounging around in the sunshine gathering itself for the big kick off. I am not, obviously, as I am sitting at a desk writing this drivel accompanied by a large mug of strong coffee. In about half an hour when the caffeine is coursing through me like hot metal I will burst into action to continue with the chores for the day.

I was a bit slow off the mark and so we only have a small team of five going to the National and as usual, with those of us who breed from the 'dark side', we will probably be all finished and heading for the bar at lunch time on day one. Win lose or draw we will have enjoyed the experience and will have learned a lot too. We will have decided who our favourite judge is and who we think is completely mad and knows nothing about anything at all, nothing.

Preparations have been underway for some time, the trailer has been professionally cleaned by the Gusmeister, the alpacas have been undergoing extensive halter training, chips and tags have been inserted and checked. I have even bought some new buckets, mainly because I had a little tantrum the other day and two buckets became lots of little pieces of bucket. Stupid buckets!   

So who are we taking? Well, one brown one, one grey one and three black ones. It would appear that although my personal passion is for the gorgeous browns, that our dedication to breeding from the best dark males available has lead to a significant increase in the black wing of the mighty Patou empire. Still, they look great together. We have ploughed our own furrow and will continue onwards, wellies on, heads up!

We have two intermediate males and an adult going. The intermediates, Wasimba (rose grey) and Viking (black) and my little chum, stroppy pants himself (after all I have done for the little turd he is such a drama queen and kicks like a mule!) Tsar (brown).

The other members of the team are the junior blacks, Spitfire and Pinot who haven't met Tsar yet and don't know they will be travelling in a trailer together. They may be green on arrival.

No pictures of the juniors, they are currently being held in a high security top secret location whilst they receive their final instructions. Over the past few weeks they have been training hard in the dark arts of the Ninja. Come show time, if things don't go exactly as we want them to, they will explode into a whirling mass of ninja fuelled violence. No-one will be safe from those razor sharp, highly polished alpaca toenails as they fly every which way searching for a soft target, the precision spitting machines  are accurate to within a hundredth of a millimetre, reloading is almost instantaneous. It will be brutal in it's intensity and awe inspiring in it's swiftness. The mighty Patou machine will be merciless!

Sorry it appears that the coffee has already kicked in, I must prepare to go outside.

And the reference to basmati in the title?

My favourite time at a big show is either early morning or late evening when the hall is empty apart from hundreds of alpacas. The soft background noise of the fans keeping the animals cool, the gentle humming of numerous alpacas, content in their environment and the smell, the wonderful smell of alpacas, which to me smells just like a newly opened packet of basmati rice. I love it!

Right, stop that!

Apparently this is supposed to be a regular blog? As in, there is supposed to be a new post every week or so. So what's going on then, it's the 20th of January and the last posting of drivel was on the 6th of December?!?

Have I been written out of my own script? Was I abducted before Christmas by a purple sloth who is now slowly feeding me to death, in a tree house, watched closely by seventeen siamese kittens? Did I lose my two typing fingers in a bizarre accident involving a trouser press and a bag of satsumas? Well?

No, no and no. I have no such excuse. I have been busy, I mean Christmas is a busy time of year isn't it? Many mince pies and presents and much ho ho ho-ing to be done. Still doesn't really cut it as an excuse though does it? Besides, Christmas ended over three weeks ago.

I am sorry, I have no excuse. And for my European friends:
Je suis désolé je ne ai aucune excuse.
Es tut mir leid, ich habe keine Entschuldigung.
Het spijt me ik heb geen excuus.

Es esmu sorry i nav attaisnojums.
Jeg beklager jeg har ingen unnskyldning.
Mi dispiace non ho scuse.

Right, enough grovelling.

So let's bring you up to date with news from Patouland.

Firstly, since my last post I had several alpacas to say farewell to. Ten in fact and that was hard. I am an emotional fellow and taking ten alpacas to France was a bit of a wrench. I am absolutely fine until the moment comes when they come out of the back of the trailer. Up until that point I look like a real roughty toughty. But, when they come down that ramp and start making there way into someone elses trailer I'm afraid my bottom lip starts to quiver and I go all a bit wibbly wobbly. All very embarassing when you look like me. So who went? All the boys that we had for sale and two females with male cria at foot. Some real favourites amongst them as well.

You may remember Branson, who had a tough start and ended up in our bath, under the hairdryer and then in our bed before spending the night with us. He recovered spectacularly and was one of the ones who went, with his mother, across the Channel.

There was also Will.i.am, a personal favourite of mine and Sue's and his chum Whisky Mac and Wesley and, well before I go upsetting myself again I can take great comfort in the knowledge that they have gone to caring owners and they will be well looked after.
Do you know what? I don't think I'll ever get the hang of this breeding and selling animals business.

Since then we have had quite a few less mouths to feed and are looking onwards and upwards. We were lucky enough to get a show team entered into the National Show before the limit was reached and have also entered a team into the Futurity. Preparations are under way to get the team ready to do battle in the ring. In fact halter training will begin this weekend, weather permitting. Team talks are being held weekly at the moment and mentally the team is shaping up well. Fleece wise we are looking pretty good too, but you never know who else is going to be there. We will party hard anyway, win ,win or win, I mean win lose or win or win.

The captain of our team this year will be our miracle boy Tsar who is currently featuring on the BAS National Stud auction. I think, and I know that I am biaised, that he looks fantastic, even if he is a very silly boy.

A second opinion from a chum of mine was sought and he thinks he looks pretty good too. No prizes for guessing who's expert hands opened up his fleece last month.

The herd is wintering well so far despite the weather. Conditions are good, weaning is underway and energy levels are where they should be, nice.

Just to prove that it does get cold down here in the south occasionally, here is Tsar with Wasimba and Viking well frosted up at breakfast time.

Right , is that enough? Can I go and lounge around a bit more now?

Comings and goings.

It appears that another month has raced past and now I find myself in December. A glorious hard frost this morning was a very welcome sign as worm burdens this year have been the highest that I have known in 9 years.  I am always mindful of not overdoing it with medication, the vets don't go on about resistant parasites for nothing but even so this year we have had to worm earlier and later than ever before. In fact Fifi, one of our, 'never to be sold' girls had a very squitty rear end this morning. She was dealt with but I really must remember to take my reading glasses (or injecting glasses) as I once again gave myself a dose of wormer in the finger. Still I shall be worm free going into the Christmas period which is always nice.

December is set to be a busy month, but more on that as it develops, a trip to Calais is coming up so we will be well stocked for the festive season. Which by the way, still hasn't started people, what happened to the twelve days of Christmas? The Christmas build-up seems to get longer every year, patience is becoming very old fashioned these days, bah humbug etc.....

I had a trip to a new alpaca herd in Suffolk two weeks ago, a small herd had been formed and they wanted a lovely black girl to complement the colours that they already had. As a result young Patou Ulani, accompanied by Vanilla and Violet (acting as travelling companions) came with me to a lovely village just outside Ipswich. It was a horrible day, wet and drizzly but here she is with her new 'family'.

 And because she doesn't look her best in the wet, here she is before she went.

I thought that I ought to point out that we have decided to put the big Q up for sale. Qjori has been a huge part of our herd for several years now but is being used more and more sparingly here as a lot of our herd is now related to him. He still has a big future ahead of him hopefully and if he does go there won't be a dry eye here, he is an absolute superstar and is much loved. His impact on our herd has been amazing, his attributes have been carried into our herd and his progeny are testament to his quality. He's like a big teddy bear really. I mean, don't get me wrong, when there are female alpacas around he is the true macho but he is so easy to handle and is such a character, he is always making me chuckle. Last week for instance I caught him for the second time, standing in his water trough. This time I had a camera with me and snapped him in full 'look at me' pose. What a muppet.

Another major change here is the 'retirement' of the Patou wagon. The old Discovery, which broke down spectacularly on the M25 last summer and then again on the M1, leaving me once again at the mercy of the AA, has been traded in for a newer and slightly more luxurious mode of transport.

Now I know I am 51, but when you only upgrade cars every 6 years or so it is quite an exciting moment. After much research I decided on a Nissan X-Trail and found a garage in Devon with 5 to choose from. When Gus (he's only eleven but isn't quite as excitable as me) saw pictures of the five cars there was only one option. The one with his name on it!

So far I have been very pleased with it, both on and off road, with or without the trailer behind it.

Right, must go, Sue is away this weekend, Gus has two friends round and we all like curry so there is cooking to be getting on with.