Runaround Sue

So, there I was. Sitting in front of my laptop on a chilly, damp Sunday morning, with nothing-in-particular to do. Bored. Thinking maybe I could pass a bit of time writing something on the blog – something about llamas perhaps. And then thinking that there’s nothing to write about, because the llamas never do anything these days.

When, oh when, will I ever learn?

Looking for inspiration, I glanced out of the window to see what the-llamas-that-never-do-anything were up to. And much to my surprise, they were doing something.

Today being Sunday is a hunting day hereabouts. Being a fairly undiscriminating animal-lover, I am not a fan of hunting. But, like bad weather, it happens. And, like bad weather, I try to just stay out of its way. Our dogs don’t get so many walks on hunting days – I am always slightly worried that they (or we) might get accidentally shot. But it’s hard to stay out of the way of the hunt, when the hunters insist on trolling across your land with their dastardly shouty voices and their dastardly woofy dogs, and their dastardly bangy guns.

We can always tell when there are hunters on the prowl because the llamas see them coming a mile off, and tend to congregate in a group, all staring in the same direction, with their ears and tails standing to attention – the very epitome of alert vigilance. But today, when I looked out of the window, I noticed that the llamas were not looking merely attentive. They were looking most definitely agitated. And when I opened the window so that I could lean out and get a better view of the cause of their agitation, I heard a shoutier-than-usual amount of shouting, and a woofier-than-usual amount of barking.

And I could see the wrong number of white-coated llamas at the point where Duc and Valentine’s field disappears from view. There should have been two. But, hang on – that can’t be right! There are three. And Duc and Valentine were springing about like kangaroos on meth (nice to see Valentine still healthy), and Lenny was chasing around like an even madder version of himself. And Elif and Lilas and Capucine were boinging and running away from the hunters but then running back toward them again, and again, and again.

And Ana was OUT OF HER FIELD!

Typically, Simon had chosen just that very instant to go for a shower – it being his turn for a relaxing start to the day an’ all. So rather than disturb his leisurely ablutions with a raucous cry for help, I calmly slipped on my coat and wellies, went to get a bucket of food from the barn, and then headed off to the bottom of the fields to size up the situation.

Well, Ana was indeed out and about, and having a fine old time. She was charging here there and everywhere, saying hello to Duc and Valentine at their fence, and running along the fence line to introduce her coquettishly raised tail to Lenny, who quite honestly didn’t know what to do with himself. For a moment I seriously thought he might manage to mount her through the fence! But then she ran back past Duc and Valentine, all the way to the yard at the top, to say a quick hello to the pigs – who, for once, were lost for snorty words.

And the hunters were shouting frantically to each other and to their dogs, until I shouted to Ana, to get her wayward attention. At which point the hunters became instantly and sheepishly quiet, and disappeared skulkily into the wooded boundary like guilty schoolboys. Which was both a shame and a relief, in equal measure. On my way toward the scene of the mayhem, I had been busily constructing French phrases in my head with which to appropriately vent my righteous anger and consternation. But since I suspected that the prepared dressing-down would lose its intended effect through dint of being uttered in a laughable accent, and being liberally sprinkled with ridiculous grammatical errors, my desire to share with these gun-laden men a small piece of my slightly cross mind had diminished with each step I took.

So with no one in sight to admonish, I concentrated my attention on the matter in hand. Ana responded as soon as she saw me – or maybe as soon as she heard the unmistakably delicious sound of llama concentrate being rattling around in a shaken bucket. She ran towards me, and for a brief moment I really thought that this was going to be easy. She followed me down the hill, nibbling mouthfuls from the ever-retreating bucket that would lead her back to the gate of her field and inside to safety. And it was all going so well, until we reached the new bridge.

Now Ana has never been keen on crossing streams. Whenever we have approached obstacles such as this when she has been out on a haltered walk, she has hesitated, and hesitated, until suddenly she has leapt – so high, and so far, that she could have cleared a gushing river, let alone a barely trickling stream. But now our scary stream has been well and truly surmounted by a nice, wide, solid earth bridge. What possible problem could she have with that?

Well, who can understand what goes on inside a llama’s head? You can study them for hours and hours, and interact with them for days, and weeks, and months, and years, and after a while you think you’ve got it. You think you know what they are going to do in any given situation. But often as not they will surprise you. They will be calm when you expect them to be frightened, or they will be antsy when you might reasonable expect them to be calm.

So, when we reached the bridge across the scary stream, Ana stopped walking. She lifted her head from the bucket of deliciously enticing food, and she looked me square in the eye. And she looked at the bridge. And she looked at me. And then she said, “No way!” And, as she once again took off at full speed along the bottom boundary of the other llamas’ fields, I realised that I could sensibly have picked up a halter and lead from the barn, along with the bucket of food. Oh well. Live and learn.

After a little more pointless shouting and ineffectual shaking of the bucket, I conceded defeat, and headed back to the house to rally reinforcements. This was going to be a two-man job, after all. I was a little surprised to find that Simon was still in the shower. It must be hair-wash day, I thought. I shouted above the sound of the running water to appraise Simon of The Current Situation. He responded as I knew he would.

I wish there was a way to tell Simon this sort of thing without it immediately triggering his emergency-response switch. He didn’t really need to rush. Ana wasn’t going anywhere. Well – not far anyway. She was having a lovely time trotting about the fence lines, flirting with the lads, and catching up on the gossip with the ladies. Mind you – Pedro wasn’t awfully happy about it. He was pacing about at his gate, humming disapprovingly, and thinking it really was time that she should be getting home. So I picked up a halter and lead from the barn, and a bit more food, and wandered back down to the scene of the action. I started to walk towards Ana along the thin strip of land between the fence and the stream, and then reconsidered – thinking it would be better to come at her from the other direction, so that I could drive her back towards her field rather than away from it. And as I turned to retrace my steps, Simon appeared, hurrying down the hill, coatless but purposeful – his long, wet hair streaming unconstrained behind him in the wind.

Within seconds Simon had sized up the situation and, unfazed by the fear of incurring a hail of invective from Lenny, he crossed the stream to approach Ana from the furthest side, shouting at me to throw him the halter and lead. We both expected Ana to bolt. We both expected Lenny to spit. They both confounded our expectations. Ana stood calm and still while Simon put the halter on her and Lenny stood calm and watchful as he did so. Then Simon led Ana back along the stream side toward her field, just as if they had been out for a little jaunt, like in the old days of Roquetaillade. She did hesitate at the bridge, but a little tug on the lead was enough to get her over it. And then she popped back into her field as good as gold.

Her reunion with Pedro was very interesting to watch. After a little tail lifting, and mutual rear-end sniffing, they both had a bit of food from the bucket, and went about their business. Except that Pedro was most definitely looking a bit sulky, and Ana was trying to make up. She was nuzzling up to him and sniffing his face and rubbing her face on his neck, and it looked for all the world like she was kissing him, and reassuring him that, even though she had flirted with that young upstart Lenny, it meant absolutely nothing.

We left them to sort out their relationship while we searched for Ana’s route of escape, thinking that there may be a bit of fence-repair needed. Both the gates had still been firmly shut, but the fence looked fine all around. In the end we had to conclude that Ana must simply have been frightened by the hunting dogs into jumping over the fence. And since we are not about to do anything as ambitious as increasing the height of all the fences, I guess we – and Pedro – will just have to live with the fact that, every now and then, Ana might pop out for a bit of a run around.