Friday, November 12, 2010

Limping llama and pouring rain

Another week almost over and the weather is not great.  I hate those days were we are doused in rain or hidden in mist.  Give me crisp, sharp, cold dry days any time!  We have also had gusty winds, the wind often blows a hooley around us.  We are not that high at 485 meters but its enough to catch a rare breeze.  The swimming pool resembles minestrone soup and the little marbled newt that we discovered in the pool was well camouflaged by oak leaves.

We were off early on Monday morning heading up to the Cantal on a buying trip.  It was a good day and we came back with some nice stuff even if we did get soaked in the process.  We love heading up to this departement for the day.  It is always an good excuse to eat out.  The monday before we were in Pamiers in the Ariege.  That is one of the great benefits of this business - we get to see other parts of France on a regular basis.  I will never forget the first time that we headed to Pamiers and saw the full majesty of the Pyrénées laid out before us.  It was worth the trip itself and really did take our breath away.

We have been keeping an eye on our poor limping llama Rancho.  The vet has been out to him twice and injected him with pain killers and anti-inflammatories.  Apparently, it could take 2 to 3 weeks to heal as he believes it is muscular.  It's so sad to see the usually cocky Rancho sat on his own in the rain, while the others wander away munching contentedly.  Not that his leg stops him munching - he just sits down and does it!!
He is taking his medicine like a little angel each day - thankfully!  So fingers crossed he will soon be on the mend.  By the way the photograph shows Rancho with his mate Chiclayo in better weather and without his limp!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Welcome to our blog

Welcome to our blog!  We are an English couple who moved from a small
village not too far from Stamford Lincolnshire in August 2004, to this glorious
part of France.  It took us a while to search out, buy and restore our property.
We created a gite in the old house dating from the 1800's and then
created our own house from a duck barn, which was across the road and
a bit further down than the gite.  We had our ups and downs with the process but we were
very lucky and most things went smoothly.  However, we did employ a French architect to
oversee the whole project - thankfully!! 

We then realised our (my) dream of owning llamas and found 4 fabulous
male llamas right on our doorstep.  We had been looking for ages and in the
interim happened to visit Monsieur Le Maire, who we told of our search.  He
immediately told us about André Richard who breeds the most beautiful and
gentle llamas we have come across.  He is absolutely passionate
about blood lines and has gone to South America & Canada to purchase his
stud males.  The amazing thing was, that he is only located
about 30 minutes from us in Villefranche de Rouergue.  So now we own (or
they own us - I'm not sure of the pecking order) 4 gorgeous male llamas and
André has been an absolute angel with us - helping us with shearing and
all the practical aspects.

So after all that, we finally managed to get back to one of our other passions,
which are antiques and collectables.  We have always lived in houses that need
restoration, repair or conversion and we have spent countless hours in our
search for that "special piece for that specific place".  We have extended that now
and travel all over the beautiful South West of France in pursuit of that special
piece for someone else's special place - and what a joy it is.
So the dream becomes reality.