Well what a beautiful little surprise!

At very long last we have some awesome news to share. Our big beautiful Bermuda the alpaca, gave birth to a stunning baby girl on the 29th September. 

Now most of our longer term holiday bookings have finished, we are still enjoying overnight and weekend breaks from families living in Spain and wanting a little getaway. That means we  can enjoy a bit of television between guests, for the first time in months. Even though the most exciting channel we can receive by far, is channel 4. The rest are strange programmes with Judge Judy doing her thing most of the day! So on Monday 29th we decided to watch some tv for an hour.  Rumour has it that alpacas give birth in the morning, or up until early afternoon, but Alan checked on Bermuda at 5.30pm ... as you do, and when we  came down at 6.30 he looked out and very calmly said “There’s a baby!”  A baby?  A baby what?  He was so calm he couldn’t possibly mean a baby alpaca? He bloody did!  He grabbed a towel and the iodine, and I grabbed the camera, and the first photo is literally the first moment I saw her.  She was already dry and sat cushed beside her mum.  Bermuda must have had her, moments after we had gone indoors, typical! She  had delivered the placenta too. As we got closer to the cria she leapt up and she walked extemely well, we couldn’t believe it.  Alan and I went inside the paddock to check her cord, and to see what sex she was.  The cord was long but not bleeding, and we were shocked to see it was a little girl.  The only females born to any of our girls have been Lily's two that have died. Once we were happy that all was good we left her with Bermuda and within 2 or 3 minutes of looking for the milk supply, she found it.  

Naming Bermuda's baby was also one of Alan's crowdfunder rewards, and he contacted Russ and told him the good news a couple of days after the baby was born, and when we were feeling positive that everything was going well. After a little while he  came back with the name Gabi.  The story behind it is that Russ is originally from  Brighton in the UK where we were from also.  The nickname of the Brighton and Hove Albion  football team is The Seagulls.  The Spanish word for seagull is 'gaviota' and in Spain you pronounce the 'v' as a 'b' , so she is our little Gabi, and we love it!   

I must admit this last week or so, we have realised that this is so different to Lily’s little fella, Milagro, which still breaks our heart, but we must try, as hard as it is to put that behind us and move on. I have to admit when Gabi was born and Alan disappeared to find the scales, I saw Lily look at Gabi, and it upset me so much, I don't mind telling you I shed some tears.  It was just all too much.  I was worried something would happen to her, plus I knew how broken hearted Lily was, and I could tell the way that she looked at her, she was missing her baby terribly!  

Gabi weighed 7 kilos the day she was born, so not very big, but she is putting on weight beautifully. We are still weighing her every other day, however she's getting stronger now and she's not so keen on  being picked up, although when we do I'm lucky enough to get a nibble on the nose from her.  We are now feeling very blessed!

Since then she has certainly been giving Bermuda the run around! At dusk we like to sit and watch her discretely as she pronks around the paddock.  Chasing kittens, kicking buckets and darting between her mum and Aunite's Lily and Cassandra. I must try and get a video of this, so please check back again in a few days to see if I have been able to add one.

She is a little beauty!