My mother – Diane Wyles – conceived (and arranged) for this activity to celebrate Mei-An’s 12th birthday! It is also partly a celebration of Mei-An passing the two 11+ and gaining entry to Nonsuch School for Girls – the school that Gee (her mother) also attended many Moons ago! This is because we live in on the borderline between Sutton and Cheam – opposite Nonsuch Park – an area King Henry VIII used to live in and wander around. It is also thought that Anne Boleyn also lived in tihis area. Still, on Saturday May 11th, we all piled into the car around mid-day and made the 50 mile journey to Hook in Hampshire!
The temperature soared to 25° Celsius as we attempted to navigated our way around all the “A” and “B” roads – so to to avoid all the closed Junctions (8-10) of the M25 Motorway! Apparently, the government is carryout some type of important re-structuring which should make travelling around London a much more efficient undertaking. As matters stood, we travelled 50 miles in two-hours – but arrived at Pennybridge Farm just in time for our 2 pm slot (the meet and greet and then walking of the Alpacas was scheduled to last unto 3:45 pm).
Although we initially arranged to walk three Alpacas between the four of us – it soon became apparent that two was more than enough to handle – as Kai-in was too young to handle one of these animals by herself. Mei-An, as a 12 year old – handled her Alpaca (Caesar) very well – before I took over at the half-way point. Gee and Kai-Lin walked “Percy”. Alpacas are herd animals and do not like being separated or individually man-handled. They often spit and will stand still if they do not like what is going on – so steady as you go – like sailing a ship on unpredictable waters! We think Kai-Lin’s brightly coloured dress might have alarmed the Alpacas as they seem slightly agitated when Kai-Lin came to close. Still, she did quite well regardless, and none of the Alpacas “kicked” – as these backward kicks to human groins and chins have been known to be quite deadly in the past!
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 