Since I am off to Ingurland for a week today, I thought I should make the effort to write a post before I leave. I expect I will have precious little opportunity for blogging while I’m in Derby, as my time will be fully occupied with such awesome things as accompanying my daughter to a hair-cutting appointment (woohoo!), shopping with her for clothes (ie not jeans) for me to wear at her wedding in August (groan!), and hopefully visiting her new house (the purchase of which should be completed on the day before my return to France, yay!). I will also be marvelling at my grand-daughter’s newly acquired walking, and mobile-phone mugging skills, and watching her being totally freaked out by the Very Special Teddy Bear which I obtained for her First Birthday present, following a vast amount of painstaking research, obsessively careful choosing, and no small expense.
And because I won’t be here next week, Simon has been busy getting done those things which he can’t do without me. Yes, surprisingly, it seems there are some.
Yesterday morning he was busy installing electric fencing down the lane-side boundary of Lenny’s field, in the hope that it will deter the lady llamas from mashing the ordinary fence whilst leaning out for tasty nibbles at the bracken and broom bushes, and will deter Mad Lenny from mashing the ordinary fence whilst leaning out for tasty nibbles at small children (who have been brought by their unsuspecting parents to ‘see the lovely llamas’). And whilst Simon was busy with the installing, I was busy with the standing still, hose-pipe at the ready, in order to blast Lenny with a powerful shot of wet cold if he showed any signs of being able to breach the barrier between where he was unhappily incarcerated in the small catch-pen near the barn, and where Simon was gallivanting about with power tools and reckless bravado, right there in the field with Lenny’s ladies, right in front of Mad Lenny’s horrified and mad-looking eyes.
Let me tell you, Lenny did not like it one bit. Oh No. He paced. He charged. He snorted. He looked for ways over, under and round the fence and gate. He kept testing the electric fence to see if OUCH it was OUCH still OUCH working OUCH. He wore a grassless path round the edge of the pen with his relentless pacing. He panted, and panted and panted. I seriously thought he might actually give himself a heart attack.
But as it became evident that the defences were holding, and that Mad Lenny wasn’t quite bright enough to notice the possible Achilles Heel in the security system (we had failed to wire the gate hinges, so in theory, he could actually just stick his head under the gate and lift it off – much as Valentine had done on one memorable occasion in the past), I could relax my grip on the Hose of Self Preservation, and actually GO INTO THE FIELD (where Simon was now busy mowing the jungle of nettles and docks) and have a Lovely Moment with The Ladies.
I think they couldn’t believe it at first. They were actually going to get the chance to eat a bucket of hard food without Mad Lenny charging at them unpredictably, and spitting in their lunch. Elif was the first to notice me standing there, bucket in hand, calling to her inaudibly above the roar of Simon’s tractor. She looked at me. She looked at Lenny. And she started to walk towards me v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, so that Lenny might not notice. But then Capucine saw that Elif was on the move and looked to see why. And when she realised what was afoot, all possibility of a subtle sidling was gone. She ran, with childish glee and the glorious image of the food bucket in her eye.
I was standing some way down the field, far enough from Lenny to be able to hot-foot it down to the bottom gate and out to safety, should he by any chance summon a sufficiently high level of Utter Insanity to be able to clear his gate in One Mad Leap. And interestingly, when the ladies reached me, even though they were far from Mr Mad, who was safe on the other side of a big barrier, not one of them would stand and eat with their backs to him. They all came to eat from the side of the buckets that would enable them to keep a watchful eye on the Turbulent Beast, whilst enjoying their spit-free grub, and a nice bit of neck-stroking from yours truly.
And it was nice. Not as relaxed as it might have been but nice all the same. Nice to know they haven’t forgotten me, and that they haven’t got all funny about being touched and stroked. Nice to know they still want to breathe in my ear, and nuzzle in my pockets. Nice to know that they don’t hold it against me that I have brought a llama of mad repute to wreak testosterone-havoc and manly-mayhem in their erstwhile paradise of peace and tranquillity.
When all the mowing was done, and the time came to let Mad Lenny back into the field, I felt sorry that their brief respite had come to an end. But something odd happened as a result of the enforced separation. Once Lenny was back with his ladies he showed no interest at all in being grumpy and aggressive with us. There was no following us around the boundaries, posing and spitting and alarming. All he wanted to do was get his ladies in order again.
But while he was away, the ladies had gotten used to their little bit of freedom from the tyranny of the Turbulent. They felt stronger and more confident, remembering the very different life they had enjoyed before they found themselves stuck in this unhappy relationship with the strutting, brawling Lenny.
“I have had enough of being a Downtrodden Llama”, said Elif. “Enough of doing all the housework and looking after the kids, and then being expected to take his abuse when he comes back drunk from an evening showing off to the lads over the fence. I think it’s time for a change!”
And a change there has been. From the moment Lenny stepped foot in the field, complaining angrily that his women had done nothing but sit around chatting while he’d been out stressing all day, Elif was back at him, giving as good as she got. He started to chase them, as is his usual custom, to make it clear who’s boss around here, but Elif suddenly stopped her running-away, and Turned. She turned to face him, with Capucine and Lilas close behind her, and she Let Rip. She went for him. She unleashed all her pent-up anger, and gave him all the pieces of her mind she could muster. She spat and barked and gurgled her tirade of recrimination. And when, surprised at the vehemence of her uncharacteristic response, Lenny tried to walk away to a quiet corner of the field to consider the situation, she followed him, haranguing him and scolding him, with her face right in his. Spitting and shouting and calling him every bad name under the blushing afternoon sun.
Come sundown, the ladies were happily grazing in a cheery little group on the newly manicured pasture at the far end of the field, and basking in the warm glow of Elif’s new-found inner strength.
And Mad Lenny stood bemused and alone, a crumpled shadow of his former self, uttering hesitant, plaintive alarm calls that drifted unheeded through the twilight air, and faded to nothing with the setting sun.
Good on ya girls!!!