Monday 5 January

Well everything should be back to normal now. Because every day is much the same for us, we tend to forget about holidays and so on several occasions we have phoned or tried to order to find that the company is closed until 5th January.

We ordered some alf alfa before Christmas and Mole Avon phoned on Friday to say that it had arrived. I went to collect it on Saturday and the young warehouseman managed to squeeze all ten bags in to the 4 x 4 even though we have 4 dog cages in the rear. I had told him that ours was specially ordered and that I was expecting a different make, but he had not listened and so had to find an expert who found the right stuff and unload and reload. When I ordered it originally they said that only one company supplied alf alfa without molassis so I was keen to have the right stuff. It emerged, however, that they do actually stock alf alfa with oil and I did not have to place a special order in the first place!!

I think next time we will order from our normal supplier and get it delivered on a pallet - much less complicated.

Ivan and Gill Hayward called in on Saturday. We have not them before but Ivan collected a stud male we imported. He transported ours and several other alpacas including some they had bought, ,from Paris the port of entry to the EU which saved us quite a bit in freight charges.

They have mostly black alpacas and amongst other things we chatted about fleece and the upshot is that they are going to be our first supplier of fleece as they do not use theirs at the moment. They are also keen to come to ours when we are shearing to see how we sort the fleece into grades.

Everything going well, although, of course, it is freezing cold and apparently set to continue so for the time being. This afternoon the sun came out which improved things a little, but it did not last for long.

David and family are coming down on Thursday and David will help me cut toe nails. {Alpacas< of course}. They certainly need doing.