Expect nothing. Live frugally, on surprise.

Posted on 12 June, 2008 by Val

I am very fond of passing the odd moment perusing internet sites for interesting quotes about Life, The Universe and Everything. Yesterday, I happened to be reading through a few quotes about Life on http://www.wisdomquotes.com/, searching for a suitably pithy response to the comments on my last post, when I came across the title of this post as a quote from a poem by Alice Walker. I shared it with Simon, who was disappointingly underwhelmed by my discovery, and for one reason or another (oh yes, we were busy moving Ana!) never got round to posting it, or indeed any other comment, on the blog.

Although I have in the past thought of myself as someone who doesn’t like surprises, experience would suggest that I have been fooling myself. Much to my surprise, for example, I thoroughly enjoyed the surprise 50th birthday celebration, and the surprise Leaving Work celebration that my erstwhile Team colleagues arranged for me – the latter of which (for the information of readers who aren’t erstwhile Team colleagues) was a formative and never-to-be-forgotten afternoon of llama-interaction, (along with some extremely silly party games involving space-hoppers and the like).

I suppose that, to enjoy surprises, one has to be comfortable with not being in control of things. Of course, the converse of this, is that once you realise and accept the fact that you really are not in control of your destiny, you open the door to the Unexpected, and can experience the joy of constantly being surprised by what Life throws your way.

And so to the point…..

A little while ago, the doorbell rang – always an ominous sound in this house, as we know that opening the door will result in some sort of difficult, and unprepared-for conversation in French. There is always a tense delay in our response, as Simon and I try to out-slow each other in getting up and going to open the door. Today I won, and carried on pretending to be busy, while Simon opened the door to find Mme Burgat standing there, frailly propped up on a walking stick.

We last saw Mme Burgat in December last year when, following a comment from our neighbour that she might have some land for sale, we bravely knocked on her door to ask her about it. At the time, she was virtually bedridden because of problems with her legs, but was very welcoming and friendly all the same. Unfortunately though, she had already sold the field in question to ‘The Belgians’ (whoever they may be). She did mention that she might have some other land she could sell, and said she would get her grandson to contact us.

The days, weeks and months went by. We didn’t hear from her grandson, and having since become aware of all the difficulties and feuds associated with the buying and using of agricultural land in this village, assumed that we never would. In fact, we had forgotten all about it.

And then suddenly, in the midst of all of our uncertainty about what is happening about the land we thought we were going to buy from our neighbour’s father, up pops Mme Burgat on our doorstep, and she wants to offer us some land for the llamas.

It turns out that she has been in hospital for four months, after breaking her femur when trying to move from her bed to her chair, and has had lots of operations on her legs. She is now recovering and, determined that she will not become bedridden again, she is making herself get up and walk. And today she decided she would attempt the walk up through the village to find our house and ask us if we still want to look at her land.

So, tomorrow at 11.00am, we are going with her who knows where in our car, to look at what she has to offer. And in the meantime, our neighbour has contacted the Notaire’s secretary to find out the actual deadline by which SAFER have to respond, if they are going to intervene in our purchase of his father’s land, and it turns out that the deadline date is 17th June. Five days to go, and still nothing so far.

Strangely these days of Uncertainty are beginning to feel like moments to savour. Until we know for sure, absolutely anything is possible. So I will continue to Expect nothing, and live frugally, on surprise.

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Relocation, relocation, relocation

Posted on 12 June, 2008 by Simon

Our client this week is a young female llama. Tired of living with the older residents in her current field, Ana is looking to strike out on her own, and perhaps find suitable accommodation with a group of young llamas who will be more interesting company for a girl approaching adulthood. Little does she realise how soon her wishes will come true . . . .

We had decided that Ana needed to be removed from Pedro’s harem, before she actually reached maturity. Having finished the construction of a new catch pen on the Rough Land, we knew that there was no good reason to delay – even though we were very uncertain of how Ana would react.

The potential problem was that, as far as we know, Ana had only ever had a lead on her once. This was when she first arrived at our land, and I led her from Mike’s horsebox. She had not reacted well to the experience, and she had danced around, jumping and pulling all the way.

In preparation for the impending move, Val had very successfully fitted her with an adapted halter and I have been working hard over the last couple of weeks to develop a close relationship with Ana, hoping that this would help her to accept the trauma I was about to inflict.

So, early this morning, after completing the normal feeding routine, we ushered all the other llamas out of the catch pen, and I casually slipped a lead on to Ana’s halter. No reaction from her. So far, so good.

The other llamas knew something was going on. They were just outside the catch pen, and tensions were clearly rising. Lots of clucking and some spitting. Time to get moving before the distress spread to Ana . . .

Unfortunately, Ana did not share this view. When a llama doesn’t want to move, they don’t dig their heels in . . . . . they use their long pointed toes. With all her weight leaning backwards, and four pairs of toes firmly planted in the ground, she clearly did not intend to leave the security of her home field!

Of course, I had to win, but I couldn’t drag her for any distance. She was resisting as hard as she could, and she was starting to get pretty stressed. Somehow I managed to get her a few feet down the steep slope out of the field gate. Time seemed to stand still, and I was able to concentrate wholly on this poor frightened, struggling creature. All of the stress I had felt in advance faded away, and I was suddenly much more confident. This seemed to communicate to Ana, and she gave way a little. We progressed down to the road in a stuttering series of stand offs – she resisted, and then she gave a little. As soon as she moved, I relaxed the pressure on the lead and praised her. As soon as she pulled back, I increased my pull.

Ana is a very clever llama and she was learning fast. Our stop-start progress continued down the short stretch of tarmac road till we could turn off down the side of a vineyard. Now we could all relax more – and Val was able to stop acting as traffic lookout and guard, and take some video.

As you can see, after her very hesitant start, Ana became increasingly more confident, until she actually wanted to take the lead as we eventually reached the Rough Land, where the other llamas were waiting, excited by her approach.

At this point, I had no idea whether she would settle down in the new field, but I was on a real high. Perhaps we really can do this llama rearing business. Yes, all I’ve done is move one untrained llama between two fields . . . . but it feels like a huge step forward.

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The Age of Uncertainty

Posted on 10 June, 2008 by Val

These are uncertain times.

Two months ago we signed the ‘compromis de vente’ for the 8 hectares of land around the village, that we are hoping to buy for our llamas to graze. When we first discussed the possible purchase with the present owner, we were aware that that much of the land was currently being used by a local wine-maker (who also grows wheat and sunflowers on a big scale), who would therefore have first option to buy the land. However, when he was offered the possibility of buying the land he was using, he said he didn’t want to.

Even so, we knew that that any sale of agricultural land in France would be subject to a complex bureaucratic system designed to prevent the break-up of viable farms, to protect the rights of tenant farmers, and to ensure that such land remains in agricultural use, within the terms of the local agricultural ‘development plan’. So, after our visit to the Notaire to sign the pre-purchase contract, the paperwork was duly sent off to SAFER (Societe d’Amenagement Foncier et Etablissement Rural), who then had two months within which to decide whether to exercise their ‘Droit de Preemption’ to intervene in the sale and buy the land themeselves, before either selling it or renting it to a farmer of their choice. Obviously that description is a massive simplification of what seems to be an enormously complex and much misunderstood process. (Needless to say, this has providied Simon with an opportunity to utilise his famous and well-developed internet searching/legal-document-small-print reading skills). But the long and the short of it all is that our purchase of the land is not guaranteed until the two month deadline has passed, without such an intervention occurring.

Well now, that all sounds very dull and boring I know. But the situation it has stirred up in our sleepy little village is far from dull!

The first inkling we had that things would not be as straightforward as the Notaire had implied they would be, was when we were out on the Rough Land busy erecting fencing, in those hot and strenuous days a few weeks back, before we moved Duc and Valentine. A nice guy called Remy, turned up out of the blue in his 4×4 Pick-Up, to introduce himself to us as the village representative on SAFER. He came to suggest that we might not want to do too much work on the land, as it was by far from certain that we would be able to buy it. In fact, he told us, he had met with all the local ‘agriculteurs’, and they had raised objections to us buying the land, on the grounds that it would split up the land that is already being worked by one of them.

Despite all the work we had already put in on the Rough Land, and all the mental planning we had done about how we would use the rest of the land when the purchase was complete, our response was admirably laid back. ‘Yes, we understood’, we said. ‘Yes, we’d happily come to a meeting, and present our ‘Project”. ‘Thanks for letting us know’ etc etc. And when he’d gone, we carried on with the fencing. After all, we had no choice at that point. We simply had to move Duc and Valentine, regardless of how things might turn out in the future.

Since then we have waited. We have waited and listened to the angry outpourings of the son of the current land owner, who has regaled us with tales of the extensive history of village, inter-family disputes over land, and unpaid rent, and boundaries, and rights of way. We have waited and been friendly to everyone we have met, regardless of which side of the dispute they occupied. We have waited quietly, without taking any pre-emptive action whatsoever, to see what will happen. Apparently, the wine-maker who uses the land has decided he does now want to buy the land. Apparently, the village welcomes our llamas and wants to make sure we’ll be alright, even if we can’t buy the land. Apparently, the wine-maker can’t raise the money to buy the land. Apparently SAFER will buy it. Apparently SAFER won’t buy it.

Rumours and speculation abound. The days pass. We visit the llamas. We take them hay, and water, and collect their poo. We walk up and down the hill, Bonjouring and Bonsoiring to all and sundry. We wait. We notice that the Mr Winemaker and his father are becoming more expansive in their greetings and more frequent in their Bonjours. We wonder what they are thinking. We wait some more.

Then last Friday, when we were unloading shopping from the car, Mr Winemaker approached Simon. ‘About the land….. , I’m sorry but I don’t speak English, you understand yes? About the land….I have a proposal for you…..’ He went on to explain that he wanted to buy the land, and although nothing was certain, if he did buy it, he realised we would be left with nothing for the llamas. In that case, he could lend us 6 hectares of land that he owns but is not using. He gestured across the valley to a wild hillside about a kilometre distant. We could use it free, for a number of years. He may wish to put a horse on it later when his daughter grows up. He would give us a year’s notice if he needed us to move off it. We could go and have a look at it with his father.

And so the next day we duly went for a long land rover drive to reach the land, and have a long walk around it. We learnt a lot about the history of the village and the guy’s family, and about the soil and the vegetation. We thought the land was lovely in many ways (a beautiful remote spot with larks singing and just the sort of land llamas would be happy to roam), but very hard to get to, with no water supply, and no obvious level spaces for building shelters. We said we’d need to think about it.

And we have thought about it, and waited. We wait for the postlady every day. Will a letter from SAFER arrive today? No, not yet. Will Mr Winemaker tell us he can buy the land? No, not yet. The landowner’s son – our friend and neighbour – waits with us. He pops over every other day to see if we have heard anything. He really does not want Mr Winemaker to buy the land. We count the days. SAFER’s two month slot started from the date they received the paperwork, but we don’t know when exactly that was.

Two months have passed since we signed the contract. Surely it can only be a few more days now. But there is still nothing we can do except wait. Wait and See.

Of course, if we do end up buying the land, does this mean that Mr Winemaker won’t like us any more? How can we make him feel OK about us taking some of his livelihood away from him? And if he buys the land, will our friend and neighbour ever forgive us for not putting up more of a fight to ensure his father’s land didn’t fall into enemy hands?

As always, Life is Uncertain. The future remains a mystery. I wonder what we’ll be doing a month from now. I guess we’ll just have to Wait and See.

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C’est la Fête des Vignerons!

Posted on 7 June, 2008 by Val

Saturday 7 June has arrived. A Big Day for a Little Village.

Over the last few days everyone has been busy tidying their gardens and frontages, and all the verges have been neatly mown and flailed. The messy stacks of wooden pallets and crates that generally litter the area outside any working Cave have been piled out of sight, and tractor trailers have been decorated, somewhat randomly and inexplicably, with bunches of flowering Scotch Broom. Willy, the village’s employed doer-of-odd-jobs-and public-works, has been busy distributing various items of display equipment and metal railings around and about, and busy-looking women have been busily carrying busy-looking bundles of goodness-knows-what into the village hall.

Today is the festival of the Fleur de Vigne. There will be a painting competition and exhibitions of paintings in the village wine Caves. There will be food in the main square, and music from ‘L’Art a Tatouille’. And in the evening, the local wine-makers will open their Caves to the public for visits and tastings and general wine-induced merriment.

And, if good sense and a lack of time for preparation hadn’t inhibited us, there would have been llamas in an enclosure outside the Castle, with two friendly English idiots attempting to provide interesting facts about llamas to the hordes of curious visitors, whilst simultaneously advertising their new ‘lamas-balades’ business.

This was in fact the suggestion made by the enthusiastic wine-maker, whose Cave is situated opposite our front door, and who saw the opportunity to attract more visitors to his neck of the village’s wine-selling woods, through the artful placement of a couple of alluring llamas in a small enclosure in the road between our house and his Cave. And for a few insane moments we were indeed tempted.

“Would the big, empty wine crates work as a fence? Perhaps the Mayor could lend us some metal barriers. Could we tether the llamas on the grass verge? Wouldn’t it be a wonderful opportunity for us to publicize our enterprise? Wouldn’t it be good for us to integrate into the village activity?” But even as we nodded and smiled and “oui”d, and started to contemplate the logistics of getting the llamas down the long road from the field and past the gauntlet of local loose and barkful dogs, my mind began creating the familiar images of horror and chaos.

What if the llamas were frightened by all the people and jumped out of the enclosure? What if they ran amok through the village, trailing trashed wine-display tables and art exhibitions in their wake? What if they trampled small poodles or tiny enfants? What if they spooked, and jumped off the cliff at the end of our road, and died agonising and screech-ridden deaths below hundreds of traumatised on-lookers?

After a night ‘sleeping on it’ (or not), we thanked the enterprising suggester for his tres bon idea, but declined to take up his suggestion on this occasion. “We need to do more training with the llamas. They are not ready, just yet. They would be frightened by so many people. They are still a bit wild. Thank you for your kind offer of help. Perhaps next time…..”

And so the Big Day will pass without an unusual contribution from ‘those English with the llamas’. And if the weather doesn’t perk up a bit soon, it will probably pass without much of a contribution from the ‘artistes passionnes’ or even the general public. 15 degrees, a strong north-westerly wind and showers is not what you’d expect for a June fete in the south of France. Sounds more like a school summer fair in Derby, actually. Perhaps in the absence of the interesting llama display, we should offer ourselves up to have cold, wet sponges thrown at our heads instead.

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A Nightingale sang…..

Posted on 4 June, 2008 by Val

….but not in Berkeley Square.

Here is just a little (aural) glimpse of some of the loveliness of the valley below Roquetaillade that we are lucky enough to experience every day.

Sometimes, when we have stopped our daily travail for a relaxing bit of lunch on the terrasse, it is very hard to pull ourselves away from just sitting and looking and listening.

Despite the ups and downs of our challenging new life, I haven’t experienced such a general sense of calm and well-being since…., well, actually, since I was taking Seroxat about 10 years ago, to deal with work-induced stress!! I’m anticipating that this current approach to raising Seratonin levels won’t be accompanied by unpleasant or harmful side effects, (an increased risk of suicide seems exceedingly unlikely).

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The Passing of Childhood

Posted on 2 June, 2008 by Val

As with humans, so with llamas.

Babies don’t stay babies for long, and (even though the experience at the time feels otherwise) teenagers don’t stay teenagers for long.

Capucine is growing rapidly and developing her very own personality along the way. She is still incredibly fluffy and endearing in her bounciness, but she is now eating hay, grass and small trees, and drinking water from the bucket, just like a proper grown-up. Of course, she is still drinking Mum’s milk whenever she wants, but she spends increasingly less time hanging around her.

Her favourite companions at the moment are Ana, who is still childish enough to join in with Capucine’s silly games, and Pedro, who is an irresistible target for much of Capucine’s more physical behaviour. She loves to jump on him, and barge him (often when the poor guy is trying to concentrate on eating his daily portion of concentrate food), and generally get under his feet. For a big, macho stud, he is surprisingly tolerant of Capucine’s antics.

Whilst we cannot help but feel a little sad at the loss of Capucine’s babyhood, the sadness is offset by fact that she is becoming more interesting as she gets older. It’s a funny thing, but now, when we look her in the eye, it feels much more as if there is ‘somebody home’ – as if there is something going on inside her head. Already the time has come for her to start school, and begin the long, slow process of training that will hopefully shape her into an approachable, amenable llama who will let us halter her, groom her coat and touch her feet.

Ana meanwhile has reached that difficult stage that all sensible parents dread. Adolescence! Yes she likes to run around playing ‘let’s pretend we’re being chased by a puma’, with Capucine. But she also likes to put on her make-up and prance around in high heels in front of Pedro. Whilst this is all perfectly normal, and only to be expected, we have noticed lately that Pedro actually seems to be taking more than just a paternal interest in this behaviour of hers. He is becoming quite possessive of her, and gets pretty stroppy when she shares her affectionate attentions with anyone other than him. So whenever we spend a lot of time with her, stroking her neck, and generally taking advantage of the fact that she is such an amazingly friendly and trusting llama, he responds with a bit of bargey posturing, and dominance-reinforcing behaviour. At present, luckily for us, such behaviour is aimed only at Ana, and in response she duly tucks her tail submissively over her back, and say’s sorry. Not quite a proper teenager yet, I guess.

More worryingly though, Pedro is showing increasing interest in Ana’s rear end. She will insist on parading it around under his nose of course, and with Fatma and Elif both being ‘unavailable’ to him, (and giving him a hard time, as pregnant women do!), you can’t blame the poor lad for checking out the possibilities. But there is a real chance that she could become fertile within the next month or so, and we really, really don’t want a teenage pregnancy on our hands. So, having put off the day for as long as we sensibly could, the time has finally come for Ana to leave home, and take up residence in Duc and Valentine’s batchelor pad.

With this end in mind we have cleverly trained Ana to accept having a halter put on her. So cleverly trained in fact that, in contrast to all the shenanigans that are necessary to get a halter on (or indeed off) any of the other llamas, we can simply walk up to her in the field and put it on her. I’d love to think this is the successful result of my careful training with the halter-in-the-food-bucket method, but I suspect that she’s just a very Easy llama (in all senses of the word!).


Of course, none of the halters we have were small enough for her elegantly narrow head, and the first two occasions of halter-application resulted in her sliding it off her head and down her neck, during her frequent sticking-the-neck-through-the-fence antics when grazing on the out-of-reach yummy grass. So, with some sharp scissors and a piece of hot wire, I modified the halter and, third time lucky, she is now the proud owner and wearer of the customized halter that will hopefully enable us to walk her sedately (ha) over to the Rough Land, on the day of our choosing.

Capucine seems to think Ana’s halter has been put there for her playful benefit, and she likes to get hold of bits of it to chew. She will certainly miss Ana when she leaves home. But, hopefully, in only a couple of month’s time, she will have a young sibling to play with, and she will take her turn at being older sister for a change.

Meanwhile, Pedro will just have to put up with his lot as the hen-pecked male, subject to Elif’s stroppy looks and Fatma’s snorts, which effectively keep him away from any food (or anything at all) until they say it’s alright for him to get a look-in.

No prospect of a shag until after Elif offloads her baby in August (gosh – we can’t wait to see him trying to mate with aloof Elif, Queen of the Castle and Mistress of Acrimony), and no chance of exploring the nubile possibilities of Ana, until she returns from the Rough Land Finishing School late next year.

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