I was down Manchester this weekend with one of the strangest
car loads ever - my mother, Missy and a kitten!
This little fella. He's now been named Ziggy, which suits
his fairly crazy personality perfectly. Long story short, my sister used to
have three cats - two girls and a boy. The male sadly passed away last year
after accidentally consuming antifreeze (if you notice a puddle under your car,
always clean it up!) and they've noticed that they are now having problems with
toms coming into the garden and spraying and just generally being a pain.
The solution was simple, get a male kitten. The older girls wouldn't
view him as a threat so he'd integrate into the household easily, and once he's
a bit older and outside, just his very presence will stop the other toms.
And I know someone who fosters cats. The moment I showed my
sister Ziggy, she'd fallen for him and, only a day younger than my brand new nephew,
it had to be fate!
And that was why Missy and I were in Manchester (my mum is
literally just hitching a ride with anyone going down that neck of the woods!).
I'd decided to dabble with this whole AirBnB craze (I know, I'm late to that
party) and found somewhere literally 15 minutes away.
With only one full day available to us, my sister recommended the White Peak Alpacas farm. It's not a big fancy show farm or anything like that, it's a couple who breed alpacas for their wool and sell them too. It's a labour of love and you can really feel that when chatting away to them. The woman who owns the place was absolutely great with my niece and let her help feed the chickens and got my mum to kiss an alpaca (not bad for a woman who didn't know what one was that morning!)
My sister had asked about dogs
on an earlier visit and was told that it was a 'selective' dog policy, meaning
that dogs that were non-reactive and calm were welcome, but not those that
would jump about and bark at the alpacas. Since Missy fitted the bill, it went
very well and all the alpacas were very curious about the little black and tan
dog - I can't say Missy felt the same though! She was very happy to stand and
watch them and have a really good sniff at the fur on the fence, but she was
not keen on having a herd approach her and would very calmly step backwards
away from the fence and look at me for reassurance. My brother in law had
worked out a nice walk for us as well and, not used to the different access
code that England has, I was rather glad for his directions, even if we did
have to stop for a while after he was 'attacked' by a frog!
A very quick weekend that
was little more than a flying visit. I was very glad to get home to a nice cup
of tea, I wont lie!
And I may have indulged
myself with some truly terrific slippers.....
The house was exactly 11 minutes from me! Excellent weekend wash had by all and Felix is eagerly looking forward to the next visit!
ReplyDeleteZiggy has settled in well, so much so Crumble is giving him nose kisses!