Christmas bazaar & ADE and the hotel inspector

Saturday saw the annual Christmas Bazaar at our local village hall swing into action, hampers, christmas puds, bowls of seasonal bulbs appeared from nowhere. The ladies who work tirelessly for the hall funds all year really pull out all the stops for the final event of the year. We had left the stall set up from the coffee morning earlier in the week so it only took 30 mins to set out the socks, yarns and hand knits. An enjoyable afternoon followed meeting lots of locals I hadn't seen for ages and making sure that they should be giving socks for Christmas and that they really ought to be Alpaca socks! so we had a very successful day.

Steve decided that going to Tavistock to buy some telegraph poles to use as gate posts would be far better than standing around at the bazaar. Once the rain stops he will get on with putting a fence across the new field to create two paddocks.

Sunday was rumored to be dry in the morning so we thought we would get the whole herd injected with Lambivac and give them all a shot of ADE. I managed to do the llamas on my own by haltering them and tying them to the gate, they were really good and stood still for the duration, this worked well for the alpacas that think they are in the llama trekking team.

We dashed off to Widecombe to do the females, just got set up, rounded the girls up and the heavens opened, oh for a big barn!. the girls were not quite as easy and Steve had to hold them whilst I injected. Great to get the whole herd done in one go, we will give them another shot of ADE in 6 weeks time.

Today I had a llama walk booked for a customer staying in one of our cottages, the forecast was awful but the lovely Met office promised that it would clear out by 12 o clock so we set out at 12 and the rain had eased off. The moor was so wet it is like walking in a stream all the time, we sat down for a lunch of homemade soup and local bread, sheltering behind a rather large gorse bush when the rain came down again but this soon cleared to give blue sky and even a little sunshine. Just as I was coming home the phone rang and it was the Visit Britain inspector. I had got the wrong day written down and she was waiting for me at the cottages. So a rather quick return to let her in, talk about getting caught out, no chance of giving a final check over. anyway she was please with what she saw and we retained our 4* rating. Glad thats over for another year.