The British alpaca futurity

Alan and I had decided a few months back that we would like to attend the British Alpaca Futurity. This is the alpaca show/ competition for the elite alpacas in the country. It was held near Birmingham, so we took the opportunity to attend and advertise our holiday apartments, with our new brochures. We flew into Gatwick and spent the night in Brighton, after meeting up with our families, for a lovely meal. Then off to the dentist for me, the following morning, as I had a little problem earlier in the year. The appointment was at 8.30am, not a favourite time of the morning for me, let alone visiting my lovely dentist (I have to say that, as I think he may read this ) However we forgot to change the time on our phone and got in the car at 7.15. So we had an extra early start!

Off we went up to Birmingham and booked into the Travelodge which was home for 3 nights. We thoroughly enjoyed the futurity and were not bored for a second, seeing the different age groups and colour competitions of the alpacas. It was all rather similar to a dance competition with the grades and age groups and I enjoyed the buzz! It was great to catch up with alpaca friends, and we also made new friends from Australia, who were there simply for the show, then off to Germany, for a competition the following week.

One of the highlights of the weekend for me was to meet up with my very good friend Ian. Ian and I were brought up like brother and sister, his mum was my dear Auntie Mabel. Ian and his family live very close to where we were so we arranged to meet up for a meal. I had a really lovely evening and I hope we did not bore Alan and Julie too much as we reminisced. What a lovely night!

The second highlight for me was the fact that Mark was coming back with us for 5 long weeks. He was working for Nigel during the week, and for us at the weekend. How was he going to cope! Would he get up in the morning, or would it be like getting him up for school again? Would he run out of cigarettes and be really grumpy? Plus would he miss his girlfriend so much he would want to go home early? All this to consider, but his mum was having him to herself for five whole weeks…. well if he could cope he in the middle of nowhere!