by Alan Parks
“I bet you we’re with her,” I said to Lorna.
Ten minutes later, the lady doctor emerged.
“Lorrrna Pen-fold.”
“Si,” said Lorna and we stood and followed the doctor into the room.
In the room was a student with the doctor.
“Dígame,” she said abruptly. Tell me.
“Lo siento. Soy Ingles,” said Lorna. I’m sorry, I’m English.
The lady doctor sighed. She looked at her student nurse, “¿Hablas Ingles?”
“No,” the girl laughed.
Lorna handed over the paper from Doctor Montaña that had been our magic ticket so far and the doctor read the note. She took a deep sigh, then she mumbled some words in Spanish that we didn’t understand.
“I am sorry, I no speak English,” she said shrugging her shoulders.
I was beginning to think she wasn’t going to treat Lorna now because she couldn’t speak to us. Suddenly a voice came from around the corner.
“Do you need some help?”
It was the voice of an angel. Well, not really, it was the voice of a nurse who had been listening to our struggles. The lady doctor broke out in a smile.
Through the nurse, Lorna explained what had happened with the eagle and having her eyes tested at the optician. The doctor referred us to the ophthalmology department of the hospital, so we made our way there, up the stairs. When we got there it was late afternoon, so there were not many people around. We were seen quite quickly.
In the room there was a young male doctor, who examined Lorna’s eyes. She was very happy and she named him Enrique as she thought he had a similarity to Enrique Inglesias.
Between the doctor and his colleague, they managed to say to us in English, “You must come back in the morning and see the consultant.” They scribbled an appointment on a piece of paper and sent us away.
The next day, Lorna was pleased to see Enrique on duty again. This time he was accompanying a lady consultant. We had always heard about how the doctors in Spain could all speak a bit of English, but again this doctor appeared not to be able to. Every so often she would throw in a few words out of the blue, which gave us the feeling she knew more than she was letting on, but she refused to speak English. Lorna had a good 30 minutes of tests, including a scan of her eyeball which revealed an inflamed retina.
The doctor prescribed some drops and asked us to return a couple of weeks later. She gave us a slip of paper to be handed into the office and they would arrange an appointment and send it out by post. There was a queue at the office and I was getting buffeted from behind. All of a sudden I was propelled forward by the lady behind me. I was about to turn around and give her one of my best ‘tuts’ and eyebrow raises to show my displeasure, but when I looked she was in a heap on the floor, already surrounded by nurses who had rushed out of consulting rooms to help. Everybody was trying to get a good view of the action and the lady was picked up and moved to a chair to regain her composure. Of course, everyone in the queue continued about their business.
Two weeks later we returned to the consultant. This time she seemed to be ready for us and she spoke a few words in English. After the same routine of tests, she sat us down.
“The eye is not better. I need to give you ‘in-yec-tion’.” I saw the look of panic on Lorna’s face immediately. All through this process her greatest fear was having an injection in the eyeball and now it looked as though that may happen.
“Here?” Lorna asked, pointing right at her eyeball.
“Here!” said the consultant, pointing underneath the eye. Lorna relaxed a little. We were given some paperwork to read and the option to go away and ask someone to translate it and come back another day, but Lorna thought it was best to do it there and then. She was led away to a room that only patients were allowed into and given the injection under her eyeball. Actually, she said it was OK, although that first time the doctor nicked a blood vessel and caused a bruise, so it looked as though Lorna had a black-eye.
We had to return four weeks later to see if the injection had worked, but it hadn’t. Three times the treatment was re-administered and each time the eye did not improve.
On the fourth visit the doctor said to Lorna, “If this doesn’t work, we need to do something else.”
The next time we went there was still no improvement. The doctor laid out the options: “Injection in the eye or steroids?”
“Steroids,” Lorna said immediately, pleased to be given the choice.
Chapter 16
A Challenge
“I feel like I need a challenge!” Lorna said to me one day in early Spring. “I’ve heard some people talking about doing something called the 5x50 Walking Challenge, where you have to walk 5 kilometres every day for 50 days. I think I want to do it.”
“Well, if it’s something you want to do, let’s do it together.”
I looked it up on the Internet and my feelings were that if it was something worth doing we should do it properly and try to raise some money for charity. We had previously raised money for a hospice in Brighton, called The Martlets, so this time we decided to donate any money raised to St Wilfred’s Hospice in Eastbourne.
We needed to measure five kilometres, so we went out in Frank and drove two and a half kilometres from the house to see where that took us. The first route we tried would involve a very big hill to climb on the way back home and we thought that may be better for later on in the challenge, once our fitness had built up a little. From the bottom of the hill we measured another two walks, taking different routes around the reservoir and with different levels of hills. Finally, we drove ten minutes down the road and measured a walk across the top of the reservoir dam, which was totally flat apart from a small hill at the end. That way we had different grades of walks depending on how we were feeling on any given day.
We had a few practice walks, trying to build up to the start of the challenge, and Lorna seemed to be coping well, although she was getting slightly out of breath on some of the upward inclines.
Just before the challenge started, we had been for a check-up at the hospital for Lorna’s eye and there had been no improvement, so they had started her on a high dose of steroids. So, as we started the challenge she was feeling on top of the world and reasonably energetic.
At the beginning we were able to go out during the afternoon as it was not too hot. One day, on our return from walking five kilometres across the top of the dam, we were getting close to the house when Lorna spotted something.
“Oh shit! Something must be wrong, there are people up there looking at the alpacas.”
She was right, there was a gathering. Although Lorna’s first instinct was that something was wrong, how would they have known? There must have been at least 15 people there looking through the fence.
“That’s strange,” I said and sped up the hill to the gate.
When we arrived, there were even more people and also a line of cars parked outside, along the track. There must have been 20 cars, and all the people that had been in them were milling around.
“Hola!” I said as I climbed out of the car, looking around nervously.
Someone came forward and spoke to me in Spanish. At times like this we realise how bad our Spanish is and we feel embarrassed.
I thought they were saying they’d been on an outing to the countryside, and had heard about the alpacas, so they wanted to stop and see them. There were kids running around everywhere and some dogs on leads. Arthur was going mad at his window, obviously trying to warn the people off. I opened the gate and invited them in.
There was a mad rush, lots of ooh-ing and aah-ing and some stunted conversations about the whys and hows of alpacas. I asked if the children would like to feed the alpacas, as our boys are normally very good at eating from children’s hands. However, we’d been trying to grow some grass in the paddock and I had just let the boys in to meet their audience, so they were not interested in anything except the fresh green grass growing between
their feet. Of course, the children tried to take the food to the alpacas, which had the effect of making them retreat. After a while a couple of the boys did take a little food from a few of the children, but they didn’t really want to know.
A lot of the visitors were far more interested in Arthur, who was guarding his window as usual; people were lifting children up to pet him and he was enjoying every minute. Normally the Spanish people who visit our house are a little nervous of Blue and especially Arthur, but these people loved him and he loved them back.
Once the whirlwind visit was over the people started to leave; one by one the cars filled up and pulled away. We were left feeling a little confused and never really got to the bottom of how and why these people had ended up at our house. A few pictures appeared on Facebook later that day and we saw them being passed around people in Montoro, which was quite cool.
Over the next few weeks we pushed on with our challenge. Some days Lorna struggled and needed motivating to get out, but only on two occasions did her medication get the better of her and she was too tired to do the challenge. On those days I did extra to make up for it and she still took one of the dogs for a walk, or did some exercise at home. About halfway through, Lorna had to start reducing the steroids and for about three days after changing the dose she’d feel tired until her body adjusted again.
During the challenge we discovered new places we had not seen before, walked around a lot of the reservoir and saw snakes, frogs, toads, dead animals and a raft of beautiful butterflies and flowers. Springtime is a beautiful time of year in Andalucía and we had seen more of it this year than ever before.
Our plan was to try and continue with our walking into the Summer, but as always the heat beat us. However early we got up during the summer months, it was just too difficult to do any form of exercise.
Chapter 17
Shearing Time
Every year our Australian shearer (and now friend) Riley comes and shears our alpacas as part of a long, drawn-out summer of European shearing. His tour takes in Scotland, England and Wales and then he also visits Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Spain and Portugal and anywhere else he is needed. This year, just before he was due to fly to Malaga to shear the Andalucian contingent, we had an email from Riley saying that he’d lost his assistant and he was trying desperately to find someone. If he didn’t manage it, would we all be able to be a bit more hands-on this year?
We didn’t want to lose Riley’s services, so we all agreed that we would help, or if necessary, get someone in on the day to help.
Riley arrived at our house in the evening, and we had arranged a barbecue and for him to stay at The Olive Mill overnight, before shearing early the next morning and moving on to the next farm. Riley always comes to Andalucía in May and it seems just about the perfect time of year for us; it is warm enough for the alpacas not to be cold overnight for their first few days of nakedness, and not yet hot enough to have caused the alpacas a problem with their full fleece on during the day. A nice evening was had by all and we said goodnight.
“What time do you want to start in the morning?” I asked Riley, dreading an early wake up call.
“Ah whatever, mate. How about breakfast at 8am?” This was a little earlier than we are used to, but of course we said, “Yes”.
“No problem,” I replied, “I’ll get up and sort the alpacas before breakfast!”
Because we only have solar energy, we have to use the generator to power the shearing equipment so I needed to get that ready, plus move the alpacas into the appropriate places. We like to try to make life as easy as possible.
The next morning I went out at 7.30am to round up the boys. I grabbed their buckets, gave them food and closed them in the field shelter, next to the shearing area. The boys would be first and then we would get to the girls.
Over breakfast Riley told us shearing stories from Australia. Horrific tales of huge spiders draped over the steering wheels of cars, massive bird-eating tarantulas hanging out in the barns where they did the shearing. Riley told us of one farm which is so vast that once through the entrance gate, it’s still a two hour drive to reach the house. On top of that, there is a farm where he shears 2,000 animals himself. It takes between three and four weeks and he has to practise yoga in the evenings to keep himself loose and prevent injury. It must seem like a relative luxury to shear our handful of alpacas here in Spain.
After breakfast we headed out to get started. Riley told us what he needed us to do.
“I’m going to need someone to help get the alpacas down and tied up, and someone else to use the paddles to scoop the fleece and bag it.”
It seemed logical that I would be the one helping manoeuvre the animals and Lorna would collect the fleece.
“Don’t worry too much,” Riley said, “I’ll walk you through. It’ll be fine.” He must have seen my look of apprehension.
Riley reversed his car, full of equipment, back to the entrance of the paddock where we would be doing the shearing. I’m sure, even over the noise of the engine and the generator, he heard my shouts of frustration as I turned the corner and found an empty pen, not an alpaca to be seen.
I grabbed their food bucket while Riley started unloading the car. I walked around to the paddock at the front of the house where the boys usually were. There was no sign of them. I continued around and found an open gate by the swimming pool. There they were, hoovering up fallen eucalyptus leaves like they were going out of fashion.
They saw me and knew they were in the wrong, so they tried to bolt in the other direction, but that was the route to the girls and I didn’t want them going that way. I grabbed for the long handle of the pool net and carefully used this to try and usher them back through the open gate and into their paddock. I was going nice and slowly. I didn’t want an alpaca ending up in the swimming pool. Every so often one of them would evade me and I was back to square one, but eventually, after much persuasion and quite a bit of food, I led them back to where Riley and Lorna were waiting, all set up and ready.
We penned the boys in and let them calm down for a few minutes, then it was time for a crash course in being an alpaca shearer’s assistant. Riley would go into the pen and grab the alpaca and he would bring him out to the shearing mat. My part in that was easy, all I had to do was open the gate to the pen and not let the waiting alpacas out. Once Riley had the alpaca on the mat then came the hard bit where I was needed.
Between us we needed to lift the alpaca onto its side and gently lower it to the ground. I then had to place the lower part of my leg across the neck, to stop the alpaca getting up again. I was not pressing down at all, the neck was underneath where my ankle met my foot and just placing it across the alpacas’ necks seemed to calm them down. They didn’t fight at all once in position. Then I had to slip the front legs through the loops in the rope used to keep the animal outstretched while the haircut took place.
To an outsider seeing photos, this can look rather drastic, and maybe over the top. An alpaca is much bigger than a sheep, and whereas a sheep shearer will up-end the sheep and position the animal between their legs, it would not be possible with an alpaca. Alpacas are very strong and it wouldn’t be safe for either the animal, the shearer, or us, to attempt to shear with just one of us holding it. The way we do it, I think each animal averages about 8 minutes to shear, so it’s over before they know it. I have seen instances of people using special handling techniques and relaxed atmospheres to shear an alpaca standing up, but Riley has to travel all over the world and so speed is important; the way we do it is best for the animal.
When I’ve posted pictures of our animals being sheared, on the Internet, I’ve had a handful of people who do not understand and comment that we’re being cruel, but it would be far more cruel to leave the fleece on the alpaca for the duration of an Andalucian summer.
So there we were, working our way through the five boys, one at a time, releasing them once they were bald, when they would go and see their bald friends
and sniff all over to try to recognise each other. The first time we ever saw cria sheared, even the mums seemed to have trouble recognising their own offspring. When we were about halfway through, a car-full of people pulled up outside while we were in the middle of shearing Rafa. They were shouting a few questions and getting out of the car and taking photos with their phones, but they didn’t hang around long once they realised our poor level of Spanish.
It’s funny to watch the alpacas once they’ve been sheared. They try to find anything they can on which to rub and scratch themselves; weeds, fences and tree branches all get a good going over. If the weather has been hot it must be such a relief to have that fleece taken off. Our animals grow about 4kg of fleece per year; some more, some less. Although lots of people try to breed animals that produce more fleece, I tend to believe climatic conditions play a huge role. If we have a particularly cold winter, the animals seem to have a little extra fleece on. Of course, after we shear them it is already hot, or at least very warm, so maybe in the summer the fleece doesn’t grow as fast as it might do in the UK, in cooler weather.
Once the boys had been sheared and returned to their paddock, it was time for the girls. Cassandra is never a problem, but Bermuda is a big girl and Lily is a bit of a spitter. We were prepared for Lily though and we put an old sports sock over her mouth to keep the spit from flying. (This is an approved spit defence/collection technique. Sometimes, if you have a sick alpaca, they need some rumen [stomach contents] from another animal to stimulate their own to start working again. Putting a sock over the mouth of your most spitty alpaca and collecting this way is often done.)