What do you think runaway llamas eat on the hoof (so to speak)? And how did they get out from the field with two women there to keep an eye on them?

As a matter of fact it was Tim the farrier’s fault. You see this happened yesterday, while I was visiting my sister who is farm-sitting for Rosie, and Mary and I were still talking about Tim whilst she was busy refreshing the water trough and I was taking photo’s. Not surprisingly, we had quite forgotten the two llamas as we laughed and chatted about Tim’s cowboy chaps (those things that almost, but not entirely, cover the pants of a cowboy or hunky English farrier).

Now those sneaky llamas must have noticed how engrossed we were down by the fence, and they saw also that we had left the gate open; no doubt they knew as well that their fast food of choice lay just over the other side of the hedge…

“Oh no, they’ve gone,” I bemoaned.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get some of their special pellets and you can try to herd them back into their field,” said Mary.

I wasn’t too sure about my ability to herd llamas, after all they are rather tall, somewhat jumpy and jerky, and they have big teeth. Instead of risking any physical contact, which may have been rebuffed, I tried to coax them and entreat them with soft words of encouragement. They were like modern school children – they loved the attention but didn’t take a blind bit of notice of what I was saying. Similarly, a firm command (or shout, in other words) made no impact on them whatsoever, although the dogs almost stood to attention for a moment… until, presumably, they realised that it was just the llamas being reprimanded again.

No, the llamas moved only of their own free will, which they exercised quickly (perhaps for fear that I might have been hiding a hitherto unknown prowess in llama herding). One dashed to a holly bush in the corner by the gate to the upper paddocks, whilst the other raced to an ivy vine on the opposite side of the path; yes, llamas love to eat the choicest young holly leaves and ivy!

But Mary was right, most of all they love to eat brown pellets; the llamas nearly knocked me over in their rush to follow Mary as she shook the pan of pellets as if they were a maracas. I shut the gate and joined the feeding party; there was a great deal of disconcerting head-bobbing and jerkiness (and that was just from Mary and me!), but they were grateful enough to tolerate a little tentative patting on the neck.

Soon we were able to resume taking the four dogs through the higher pastures for their much anticipated walk; they had waited patiently on the path for the duration of the runaway llama incident. Funnily enough, as we reached the top of the adjoining field we heard some snorting sounds; we looked in the direction of the hedge and saw two familiar heads, craned on long stretched necks, looking at us from the other side of the hedge. From under their pretty long eyelashes, their eyes implored us to take them with us on our walk, and lips parted to reveal two sets of stout yellow teeth.

“Not likely,” we sisters thought alike, without the necessity for words. We laughed and ran off chasing the dogs through the long grass and wild flowers.

“A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse…” I wish I had a horse. Perhaps you’re wondering why a mermaid wants a horse… well, it is not a matter of life or death – just a matter for regret – and if you had gone to Rosie’s farm with me today you wouldn’t need to ask.

My sister, Mary, is farm-sitting again so I thought I would go over on my bike and lend a hand, and at the same time I would burn off a few more calories (back on the diet – so far so good, but it has only been a day!). After a nice cup of tea Mary and I decided to take the four dogs for a walk in the fields, and we would say hello to the llamas en route because, although they look skittish and haughty, they really love human company. We had only just left the farmhouse when we saw a very pleasant sight ahead of us.

“What’s that?” asked Mary with a smile.

“Lady Chatterley’s lover,” I replied.

In fact he wasn’t a gamekeeper at all, but the description fitted somehow for he was not a townie; he looked perfectly at one with the farm surroundings, stood, as he was, beside a big spotty horse. The handsome farrier grinned.

“Nobody has said anything like that since I was in my twenties,” he said modestly.

After our initial surprise we contemplated for a moment then nodded our heads.

“We’re not horse people,” Mary made sense of it.

“Horse people must love their horses (more than handsome men),” I followed her drift.

“Tim’s the best farrier in the whole world,” said the lady with the horse.

“The world?” queried Mary.

“This is my world,” she shrugged, “but this is my daughter’s horse, and I’ve known Tim since he was seventeen.”

Mary and I observed the young man’s muscular arms and the deft way he handled the horse’s hooves and the tools of his trade. We had never seen a farrier at his work before, except in the movies, or Westerns, and, fascinated, we stayed and watched, not least because the old farrier in “Gun Smoke” never looked like Tim. Being of good nature, Tim seemed not to mind me taking photographs for my blog today, and being very interested, I took great many.

At last Malacca Nebone (if I remember the horse’s name rightly – I think it means “shining stars” in Sudanese) was shod, we said our goodbyes (reluctantly), and Mary and I continued on our walk to the field where the llamas were desperate for company.

“I wish it had been a hotter day today,” said Mary wistfully as she hosed fresh water into the llamas’ trough.

“I know what you mean…” I agreed.

“Then he would have had to take his shirt off!” we said together and laughed.

And should you happen to own a horse (lucky you) that requires the services of “the best farrier in the world” (lucky you) look up Tim D. Hughes DipWCF, from Newton Abbot, Devon.

It happened today as I was dressing to go to bookworm club (that’s why I put on my Kindle reader while I was painting earlier this week – in my case it should be called ‘earworm club’). Anyway, as per usual when I’m feeling a bit on the chubby side, I tried on several things but nothing felt quite right and each discarded garment, sometimes tried on more than once, landed up on the bed. After the great reception enjoyed by my surprised green and black harem trousers yesterday I put on my multi-coloured harem pants; the pants looked good but somehow, it seemed to me, none of my tops were suitable for bookclub – pretty yet demure, and not too strappy, low or sexy, was the order of the day. All my tops of the appropriate colour came into the category of the latter.

Perhaps half an hour had elapsed, and desperation was beginning to set in, when I remembered that I had bought a nice, generous-sized pair of white pedal-pusher pants recently; they hadn’t even been worn yet on account of all the rain we’ve had of late.

“Oh my God!” I thought as I struggled to make the waistband meet.

“Crikey,” I said aloud as I looked in the full-length mirror and noted that, having managed to pull up the unwieldy zip at last (after a great battle), the surplus around the girth of my abdomen had been pushed upwards, unflatteringly, above my waist.

“How much weight must I have gained in eight days?” I wondered, “What on earth have I been eating?”

Suddenly the weight of the world was on my shoulders and I felt ugly and despondent. My thoughts ran to drastic actions, such as beginning the dreaded Dukan Diet again.

“Lucky I rejoined Dawlish Leisure Club,” I thought to myself and I envisaged getting up at six o’clock every morning for the next two weeks to go to the gym and the swimming pool before taking long bike rides (weather permitting).

Still wearing the cutting reminder of my recent sloth and extreme over-indulgence, I continued to search the wardrobe for something pretty, demure and fitting (literally) when I came across another pair of new white three-quarter length pants and the penny dropped…

A few moments later, and dressed in soft pink and white, I was on top of the world again. I had even found a pink ribbon to slip around the waistband of the pants and tie in a pretty bow. The small-sized pants, bought last year in the sales by a very optimistic me, had joined the top of the pile on the bed. I put on some shiny pink lipstick, picked up the cakes I had made, and went off to see the bookworms. A nice spread had been laid on by our host and some of the other bookworms, and I cast aside all thoughts of the famous diet torture devised by Dr Dukan. Well, I deserved it – I had had such a nasty shock…

Who couldn’t love that little face poking out of the basket on a chariot (if that is what you call them) outside our favourite Lidl’s store yesterday?

Just picture it… We have just pulled up outside a tyre shop on a small industrial estate. Chris gets out, leaving Mum and me in the car, and he goes into the office; a minute or two later he comes out closely followed by a very short-haired lady dressed like a mechanic and wearing big boots; and they talk beside the car but we can’t hear very well because Mum and I are inside and Chris’s window is down only a couple of inches.

“Is that a man?” whispers Mum, which is quite uncommon for her because she is a little deaf.

“No,” I answer normally because the lady has gone back inside.

“I didn’t think so after hearing her talk – she sounded like a woman – but she looked like a man. Didn’t she?” says Mum.

“Yes, a bit,” I reply. For a moment I wonder what she would have made of the recent winner of the Eurovision Song Contest – the bearded man who sang like a lady and dressed in an evening dress.

Chris gets back in the car.

“We have to wait a few minutes until the car ahead of us has been done,” Chris offers.

In a short while a middle-aged man comes out to see what kind of tyre we need. Chris gets out to tell him.

“Just bring the car over there,” the man points; he smiles at me through the window and he disappears.

Chris gets in the car again and moves it into the correct position for tyre removal and replacement. But it isn’t on a ramp – they are going to do it on the tarmac. I can see a young man bringing out a jack.

“Should we get out?” I ask Chris before he leaps out of the car again.

“No, I think it’s alright, the chap didn’t say anything about getting out,” says Chris.

The older man joins the lad and puts the jack into place. He looks at me and smiles.

“Are we light enough to stay in the car while you jack it up?” I ask amazed (especially as I can remember some the occasions when my Dad swore at lousy jacks).

“This one will take up to eight tons,” the man chuckles.

I laugh too and then, like Calamity Jane, I think to myself, “Hey that ain’t quite so funny!”

The new tyre is on, and Chris is about to pay at the office, when the older man comes out from the dark of the garage again.

“Hold on,” he says concerned, “I think we’ve got the size wrong. Is it a sixty or a sixty-five?”

“Sixty-five,” answers Chris, already stood and waiting to pay.

The lad comes out with the big, strong, eight-ton weight-bearing jack in his arms. I can’t bear the thought of sitting in the stuffy car and being jacked up and down again, so I get out and adjust my clothes.

I’m wearing green harem trousers trimmed with black and a new cream-coloured gypsy top with black embroidery on it; obviously, I’ve never worn the combined outfit before because the top is new. When I glanced in the mirror during the morning rush I had thought that it looked okay but now I’m not so confident; I wonder if the ample gathers around the middle are a bit bulky and unflattering (normally, I prefer close-fitting clothes to show my good points). Chris walks over to me while I’m considering this matter.

“Darling, do you think this outfit is fattening?” I ask.

“Rather!” Chris responds with enthusiasm and a sexy look in his eyes.

“Ooh!” I say wounded yet also perplexed at his strange reaction.

“The outfit is fascinating!” he says, noting the wound and making sure that I know he had misheard in a good way. (Chris is a tad deaf, as I may have told you before.)

“Not fattening then?” I ask.

“Nonsense,” he says, “I could as easily have heard it as ‘flat …erring’ ”

He is a bit of a wit (as I may have told you before).

What spare tyre?

Nearly finished my canal painting. Not sure whether or not to add some human life into the painting. Yes or no?  What do you suggest? I will wait until the weekend and decide when I haven’t got a headache!

My Mum thinks I should enter our garden in the Dawlish in Bloom 2014 gardening competition – well, I must admit it does look pretty. I’ll take some photo’s for you when the sun comes out again, if the sun comes out (it is still so chilly and wintry here). Instead of procrastinating, I went along to the Manor House, our council offices, to pick up an application form. I was delighted to find that the form takes up one half of the centre pages of our Spring Newsletter of Dawlish Town Council. The glossy, eight page production is called “The Town Crier” – what a lovely name!

On the inside page of “The Town Crier” our mayor has written a piece entitled “My Mayoral Year”. There is a photo’ of the mayor and his wife; he has a kind face and smile. He must be a modest man because I had to search the whole booklet for his name, which was right at the back, on the last page. Councillor Terry Lowther (my spell-check wanted to call him Loather!), our Mayor, comes across as a very nice, down-to-earth gentleman; after a brief summation of the high-lights of his year thus far he wrote of “a sobering moment”….

In our mayor’s words:

One of our grandsons – a six year old – asked me about this Mayor business. He said “How do you get to be Mayor, Gramps? Is it sort of in the family (no doubt looking to his future) or do they just give it to some random old person?” That certainly put me in my place!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unfortunately, the “Chairwoman’s Address” featured in last year’s Dawlish Carnival Programme did not paint such a happy picture. The scanned article is below.

People often tell me how lucky I am to have Chris for my husband. “Yes, I know,” I usually answer, and I sometimes want to add, “I’m such a poor fish myself,” but I don’t because that would be churlish of me. After all, they probably say it as a compliment to my good taste in choosing such a nice husband, or perhaps they are well aware I’m of a flirtatious nature and therefore they think a little reassurance on their part will keep me grounded. If the latter is the case, they ought to realise that flirts are often the most innocent of creatures, yet not so naive as to be unable to appreciate when they have found near perfection.

Anyway, none of this is really what I want to blog about today; I just wanted to begin by telling you that I’m lucky because Chris helps me make the bed each morning – then, of course, I got to thinking about everybody saying how lucky I am!

So, there we were a few hours ago, making our bed; of the three pillows apiece only one matches the duvet cover of white patterned with pretty pink roses and green leaves; and for some strange reason Chris put one of the non-matching pillows on top.

Incidentally, have you ever wondered why people require so many pillows and cushions nowadays? We have six on our bed but, when I was at the doctor’s surgery the other day and I picked up a House and Gardens magazine, I noticed that nearly all the display beds had upwards of eight pillows, bolsters and cushions – there was practically no room on top of the beds to sit! And what do we do with them when we get into bed? Do we arrange them prettily for our comfort and pleasure? No, at least Chris and I don’t, we throw them onto the carpet. Sorry about this little aside – just thought I’d air my ponderings on this modern obsessions with pillows and cushions.

So Chris had put the odd choice of a non-matching pillow on top and he hadn’t pulled the duvet up quite far enough to match my side; not only was the symmetry wrong but also there were wrinkles and folds in the duvet cover.

“You’ve put the wrong pillow on top,” I informed like a hospital matron (lucky Chris).

“Which is the right one?” he asked.

“Can’t you see that the pink rosebuds with the bit of green match the cover?”

“Not really.”

(Now in truth, it wasn’t a perfect match because the duvet had been a present and didn’t come with pillow cases. However, the pillow cases that I had ear-marked for the job were as good a match as I could find, especially in colour if not design and size of roses.)

Chris swapped over the positions of the pillows and pulled the duvet back to the same weird, lop-sided height as he had left it before; pulled awkwardly at odds with the side of preference – my side – the same wrinkles and folds appeared again, as before.

“Would you mind pulling up the duvet a little?” I asked.

Chris obliged with a certain finesse and lightness of touch that looked very much like blatant, albeit mute, sarcasm.

“All ready for inspection,” he couldn’t resist saying.

“Good,” I burst out laughing.

A short while later I was thinking in the shower; it was a long shower (hair wash) so I thought a lot. I got to wondering how and when I had become so petty. It seemed to me that when I was young and smaller there was so much to learn, and so much growing and living to do, that I would not have worried about making the bed, let alone the order of the stupid pillows. Now I am bigger (in every sense) and travelled, and know so much more, how come I am bothered by the small things? Does this mean that small is big when we are growing, and conversely, that when we are big and bloated with self-confidence we are actually becoming small-minded.

My Big Small Theory probably has as many holes in it as a shower head, after all it was devised in only the length of time it takes to have a long shower; nevertheless, I have decided that tomorrow I shall bite my tongue when Chris puts his pillows at odds with my own. I promise that the wrinkles will not rankle with me. There will be no war over roses, big or small, in our house. Lucky Chris.

A lot of people are glad to see me painting again, not that I have ever stopped (as you will know if you are a regular to my blog), but the trouble is… that I don’t have much time to write my blog or my new book.

At least, whilst painting today, I have made great inroads into another book, “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak, which we will be discussing at Bookworm club next Sunday. And if you’re wondering how I manage to read and paint at the same time – well, thank goodness for modern technology and Kindle reader. Okay, the female voice of my reader is American and doesn’t do a fantastic job with German accents but I quite like her clarity, and her pauses and inflections as she follows punctuation perfectly. If she can’t understand a word she spells it out, which is a little worrying at first but you get used to it after a while.

As for the book itself? I love it. It’s touching, thoughtful and brilliantly written. I can hardly wait till tomorrow for my gal to finish reading it to me.

Meanwhile, here is another photograph of my painting, now rapidly reaching the final stages.