Dancing Queens.

October.

Fresh patterns at the canal lock.

Sometimes pollution can look pretty.

The last pattern came with a warning.

Colour and light - Octobers special gift.

Misty October mornings that lift slowly.

A crop of green tomatoes and one red one.

A clutch of lovely brown eggs in the old nesting boxes where no one was looking.

This is all very well, but is there a story?

Yes.

There’s a story.

My gallus sister in law went on holiday and left her unsuspecting neighbour Annie Oakley in charge of her animals. This seemed very straightforward until the automatic door on the hen coop refused to open or close at the right times. Annie-O was analysing the problem - bent over the coop absorbed in applying her keen analytical mind to find a solution, when the Protector of the Croft took exception and landed his front hooves on her shoulders. Fergus the Alpaca is a tad over protective as well as heavy.

After being brought into consult on the crofting issue we decided that Fergus was mostly harmless and the coop would have to be opened and closed manually every day.

The week passed and all animals and neighbours survived.

On her return Gallus-Alice declared that the alpaca’s toenails needed trimming.

This required rounding up, wrestling and spittal dodging. None of which any of us have had training in.

Goats, horses and alpacas are all perfectly happy as long as you’re just feeding them.

But there’s no love left for the chiropodist.

Getting the correct species of animal into the clipping shed proved the first problem. We could get goats in no problem with horses a close second. Eventually we got Fergus in and goats out. He wasn’t very pleased which resulted in Gallus having lots of smelly green slime in her hair and clothes. I’d thought saliva applied at high velocity would be the issue but no - it’s regurgitated stinky, slimy grass.

With a great deal of effort and a lot of swearing we managed pedicures for Fergus and his gal pal,Jewel. Gallus had managed to get a hold round Jewels elegant neck while I glued my bottom to the animal and pushed, walking backwards with a bucket held up at Fergus’s filthy mouth for protection as he was pursuing me closely with his ears back and his mouth open in readiness.

My sister in law suspected a lack of commitment on my part due to the complete lack of any spittal on my person. It IS possible that I could have tried harder if I’d cared less about stinky slime.

By this time Cumulus and Indie were too spooked and so we agreed to let the dust settle for a couple of days and then regroup.

I prepared better for the 2nd round.

I’d googled soothing words in Spanish, hoping to take them back to distant, inherited memories of long ago in the Andes. I’d have brought pan pipes if I had any.

I stuck them up in the shed hoping I’d be able to read them mid-wrestle.

I also brought the nearest thing I could find to a hazmat suit. It was a ‘pistols at dawn’ kinda situation but Fergus chose the weapons and my spittal was only going to slide down my chin so he had the advantage.

I was planning to approach the problem the same way I approach a Highland Scottische. The sad state of affairs is that no one wants to dance this with me anymore than an alpaca wants its toenails trimmed. Spook describes it as more like a wrestling match and complains he bears the bruises for weeks afterwards.

Having experienced more refusals from potential dance partners at the Mountan Rescue Team dance a couple of years ago than our attempts to wrestle an alpaca, I realised I did have SOME training in the art of subterfuge. You have to sneak up on them. Catch them when they least expect it. This had worked on Garlic Dave who was at the bar that night, pondering what he might like to drink next. He was young and vulnerable with his back to me. He didn’t see me coming whereas everyone else had. He didn’t know how to say no to an older woman and had no idea what the dance entailed. He endured a drag round the dance floor at high speed, in front of his team mates with no other participants - willing or otherwise.

I really worry this dance is going to become extinct long before alpacas do.

The main difference between trying to get a dance partner for a Highland Scottische and trying to get an alpaca into a shed when they’ve got their dander up, is no spittal.

If Gallus had been able to get a harness on Fergus it’s possible I’d have more empathy with Garlic Dave. I might not have made it home.

Fergus upped the anti by rearing up in between bouts of firing green slime.

He looks like a teddy bear.

But he knows how to make himself look really big…

The alpacas won today so in reality it did turn out to be quite like my sad dance story. And I didn’t get to try out my Spanish. We need to win next time for the sake of their toes.

We could try blasting Peruvian music from the shed.

Or we could try rounding them up mechanically.

I’m going to channel a new energy. I was thinking of something a little more Steve McQueen…

I’ll put a reel on instagram and Facebook as I don’t know how to put videos on here. But the reel tells some of the story. @moaitken1