Seriously Mum, How Many Cats?

by Alan Parks

  “OK. He isn’t getting it in. I’m going to have to help him. It isn’t any wonder he’s getting frustrated.”

  I slipped on a latex glove and tried to hold Bermuda’s tail with one hand and gently (I thought this was best) guide Rafa into the target area.

  “It’s no good, I need you to hold her tail for me; it’s too awkward,” I said looking up at Lorna from my unusual position on the floor.

  So Lorna got down on to her knees and from the other side she held the tail out of the way, while I guided Rafa home. We could barely look at each other for a few seconds after.

  We both stood up to watch, knowing the whole process could take 20 minutes from here. What should we do next? Cassandra, another alpaca, wandered calmly over and plonked herself down next to Bermuda, awaiting her turn. This meant a decision had to be made. We couldn’t use Rafa as he is Cassandra’s son, and we wanted to be in control of the situation once the matings finished.

  We decided to try Cassandra with one of the grey boys. We brought Marcus around, and as Cassandra was still sitting next to the loving couple Marcus was able to mount her easily. Rather than wait to be invited, I got involved straight away and moved Marcus into position. After roughly 20 minutes from the start of the mating, first Rafa, then Marcus, stopped orgling, stood up and that was it. We took them back to their paddock and hoped that we would have some healthy babies in around 11 months.

  “Well, that’s another one checked off the bucket list,” I said to Lorna. “Took part in an alpaca orgy!”

  She shook her head and tutted at me as we made our back to the house.

  Why do they feel the need to get involved? We had organised it all ourselves, and I was just waiting my turn when that stupid man came around in his pants and took the boys away. Then, two weeks later, what happens? He brings the boys back around to mate with us. If he had only asked we would have done it already.

  I spent some time with Rafa, although he was a little over-keen and didn’t really seem to know what he was doing. The strange man ended up helping him. How embarrassing!

  It feels wonderful to be pregnant again, although now I don’t like the humans to touch me. One day soon I will have a cria running alongside me in the paddock and there’s nothing I like better than that.

  Those people had better not come near me with those nail trimmers for a while!

  Bermuda

  Chapter 3

  A Change of Fortune

  “I can’t believe it,” I said to Lorna as I read the email. “Someone else wants to come and view the house. That’s two in as many weeks. Maybe our luck is starting to change?”

  Lorna and I had reluctantly put The Olive Mill on the market a couple of years ago. We wanted more space for the alpacas, and we wanted to be closer to a town, but although the house had been on the market for some time, nobody had made us an offer.

  Now, all of a sudden we seemed to be inundated with people wanting to view the house. One person came through an agent, one person found us privately, and three further enquiries came from different people contacting us on the Internet. Could this be just what we needed to turn our fortunes around? We certainly hoped so, and threw ourselves into cleaning, painting and preparing for each of the viewings.

  There were jobs that needed doing, such as painting and tidying the outside walls and weeding the garden areas. Even though the first lady was due to arrive from Dubai at the end of November, we decided it would be best if the pool was nice and clean too. Just two days before she was due, we seemed to reach the end of the warm weather as a bitter wind swept across southern Spain. We contacted the lady, Sue, and told her to bring some warm clothes and we would make sure she had wood for the fire and a gas fire in the bedroom. We also offered to supply an evening meal, for a minimal cost.

  We arranged to meet at the hotel bar in Montoro, as we thought that would be a good first impression of the town, and give us a chance to relax and have a drink before we brought her back and showed her around.

  “What I’m looking for is somewhere where I can be self-sufficient,” she said.

  I ticked that off in my mind.

  “It needs to be peaceful as I’ll have paying guests to come and stay. The inside of the building doesn’t really matter, as that can be changed, but the land is important. I’m looking for an olive farm and low running costs are essential.”

  Check, check and check. I was quietly getting excited.

  Once we were back at The Olive Mill, we showed Sue around. After a few minutes, she asked to be left alone to have a wander and ‘get a feel’ of the place. I watched from the window as she walked every inch of the land and even scaled the biggest hill to where the lightning had struck the tree all those years ago. She seemed to be in her element.

  Although it was cold, at least the sun was shining so the solar power was working well and we didn’t have to worry on that score. We sat around the table in the big kitchen eating a meal that Lorna had prepared and chatted until late in the evening. At about 11pm Sue declared she needed to get some rest, thanked us for our hospitality and went off to bed. While washing up we fantasised about her making an offer and what we would do. What if?

  The following morning Sue was out early once again walking the land and following the track up the road. She was well wrapped against the early morning frost. After a time had passed she re-appeared and came in for a quick breakfast.

  “How did you sleep?” asked Lorna.

  “Great, thanks. I took one of the duvets off the bed and slept in front of the fire. It was perfect,” she said in her New York drawl.

  After breakfast we waved her off and Lorna and I were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves, hoping and praying that Sue had liked The Olive Mill enough to consider making it her new home. We didn’t know how long we would have to wait to hear whether or not she liked it, but we were impatient to find out more. All we could do was wait.

  While we waited we had an email from Jurgen. He was from Austria and had stumbled across The Olive Mill on the Internet. He and his wife Birgit were going to be in Montoro, looking for houses for a few days and they wanted to come and see The Olive Mill too. Jurgen was adamant in his emails that he was looking for a good deal, but finding us privately meant no agents fees so we were willing to be flexible.

  Jurgen seemed to know Montoro so we arranged to meet at our usual rendezvous early one morning. Unfortunately, the timing was bad this time. Although the place had been looking good for the visit of Sue, as there had yet to be any rain, the two days before Jurgen and Birgit were due to arrive, the weather broke and the winter rains started. We had been watching the forecasts with bated breath, hoping it wouldn’t happen, but it did.

  On the morning of the viewing the sun came out and started drying everything out. Gradually throughout the morning we were able to remove each of the buckets that had been placed around to collect the water cascading through the ceilings that still bore the marks of the dreadful workmanship of Neil the builder all those years ago. There were a couple of drip marks on walls, but we were honest about the work that needed doing.

  As we stepped through the door, Jurgen and Birgit were looking around and I heard the tell-tale sound of a drip hitting the tiled floor. I scanned around quickly, finding the tiny puddle and scurried across the room as inconspicuously as possible and stood under the drip. I stood still, only turning to address the couple as they asked questions. Every few seconds another cold drip would land on my head and trickle down the back of my neck. I think I got away with it. If I didn’t, goodness knows what Jurgen and Birgit thought as I stood there under that drip!

  We were willing to take all of the issues into consideration when looking at offers, and if any buyers were genuine about making an offer we would have told them the problems anyway and asked them to take it in to account. When we were showing them around, the water problems didn’t seem to upset either Jurgen or Birgit, and I felt that Birgit was making plans for some of the outside areas to be turned
into horse riding areas and a corral. Once again we felt hopeful, as they seemed to really like the place. We fell in love with The Olive Mill, why wouldn’t someone else?

  Now might be a good time to just say that Lorna and I really do love The Olive Mill, and if things had turned out differently, both financially and with the alpacas, we would be happy to stay here forever. Personally, I love how rural we are, although I know that sometimes Lorna can find the isolation difficult. We also love Montoro, and if we were able, we would pick up the town and The Olive Mill and take them with us wherever we end up going. We also (most of the time) love living off grid. It doesn’t cause us too many problems, so if this place ever sells, we might even go down the same route again. Bills versus convenience. That is the dilemma.

  So, we were waiting patiently to hear from either of the potential buyers. Both Lorna and I felt that Sue was a more likely buyer (although she was single, kind of, so that might be an issue), given that the house was in a better state when she saw it, but we also both thought that Birgit had really liked it and may have sprung a surprise on us.

  The first we heard was from a friend in town. Janet’s house was also up for sale, and on running into her in the supermarket she proceeded to tell us how this Austrian couple had contacted her and been to see her house. They had told us they were only seeing ours, but it turns out they had also told Janet this. Janet had news; they had made an offer on her house. Her property was on the market for €325,000 (The Olive Mill is on for €350,000 if you are interested, but we are open to offers), but the Austrian couple had offered only €180,000. She had turned it down flat. We needed the money, but could not afford to accept an offer that low either, so in a way we were pleased not to be put in that position. So one out of two was bad news.

  Then came the second, an email from Sue.

  “I have thought long and hard about The Olive Mill and although I really like it and the surroundings, I think there is too much work for me, as a single woman, to do on my own.”

  “Damn!” I said as I read out the email to Lorna.

  “Don’t worry, stay positive, I’m sure someone will come along soon,” she said to me.

  Both positive outlooks had been shot down, and we still had winter to contend with.

  Chapter 4

  Dentistry in the Garden

  In the late summer/early autumn of the year before last, Lorna was having great difficulty with a couple of her teeth. Before we moved to Spain we’d had a fabulous dentist in Brighton and Lorna had to have some bridge work done. Of course it cost a pretty penny, as all dentistry work does, but at the time we were both working and had the money so it was OK.

  Over the last few years, the bridge had started to fail and one of the front teeth actually broke off on a piece of bread while Lorna was eating. We managed to organise a visit to a local dentist in Montoro who did a temporary filling on the tooth, so Lorna could at least be seen in public without covering her mouth, but it did mean she tended to stick to a softer range of food than she would have liked.

  In the September our dentist from the UK, Bruce, contacted us as they were visiting their house in Alicante and they wanted to come and see the alpacas and spend the night here.

  “G’day Lorna. Would it be OK if me, Diane and the kids came to stay for the night on our way to the house?”

  Lorna was hanging over the balcony in one of the bedrooms trying to get the best mobile reception.

  “Of course,” she replied, “I don’t suppose you could do a filling while you are here, could you?” She was half joking.

  “Yeah, why not? My son’s a dentist and Diane is a dental nurse. No worries, we’ll sort you out.”

  Lorna was left wondering how and when this dentistry was going to happen.

  Bruce and his clan arrived and we showed them into the apartment, arranging for them to come down in an hour or two for a barbecue. The teeth were never mentioned. A couple of hours later the gang emerged and we started to prepare the food and the table. Still nothing was said about Lorna’s teeth. I knew it would be playing on Lorna’s mind; she hates going to the dentist anyway, but she didn’t know quite what was going to happen that day.

  After a couple of hours of eating, chatting and (yes, really) drinking, suddenly Bruce piped up.

  “Right then, shall we have a look at this tooth. Where’s the best place?”

  “Errr, I’m not sure, it’s a bit dark inside, our lights aren’t very bright, where would be best for you?” Lorna stammered.

  “What about here? I’ll sit on the bench, you sit on the floor and lean your head back between my legs (pictures are available on the Internet), that should be fine.”

  He pulled out some dentists’ tools wrapped in surgical cloth and a solution of whatever is used to make up fillings was mixed together. He even had a portable UV light to dry the filling in the mouth.

  “I can do this today,” he said to Lorna while she was open-mouthed and filled with implements, “but I don’t really know how long it will last. You really need to consider getting some implants.”

  I saw the look on Lorna’s face change, even though she was unable to speak. We had, in the past, seen TV programmes like ‘Dentists from Hell’ where people had been left with terrible problems after this kind of surgery.

  Bruce promised us that it would be able to be done quickly, during one of Lorna’s visits to the UK, and he also promised us he would keep the cost as low as possible. We said we would talk about it, and talk about it we did. Eventually Lorna was persuaded that this might be the only way she could get back to being able to eat anything more than scrambled egg or soft pasta. A quick email to Bruce to check she would be sedated during the whole thing and she was convinced.

  One of Lorna’s biggest fears is feeling pain at the dentist. One time, when we still lived in the UK, I had to take her to the dentist to have a tooth removed under sedation. I was allowed in with her while they gave her the injection, then the nurse said I could go.

  “I’ll see you in a few minutes,” I said to Lorna. Her eyes were starting to go a little glassy and the nurse was putting cotton wool against her gums. I walked out of the door. As I got half-way down the corridor I could hear Lorna’s voice…

  “Muvvv you Awannn…” she called out as she went further under the influence of the drug.

  I had a moment of dilemma. Do I go back and reciprocate? Or do I just put my head down, pretend I didn’t hear a thing and walk out to the waiting room?

  Have a guess which one I chose. Lorna didn’t remember a thing about it when I asked her afterwards.

  During Lorna’s next visit to the UK, she arranged to go straight to Bruce’s surgery to have X-rays taken and work out the schedule. This had to be done early in her visit, as they were hoping to complete the procedure during the 10 days Lorna was in the UK. She needed to go directly from landing at the airport on Thursday afternoon to have the prep work done and impressions taken to give the technicians time to make the new teeth and have them fitted before she returned to Spain at the end of the following week.

  Lorna called me the evening after the visit.

  “It’s terrible, you won’t believe it. When they took the X-ray they realised things were much worse than they thought.”

  They had said that they were going to remove three teeth and put in two implants and a new bridge, but they had to take out four teeth and do a bone graft. Also, they couldn’t put the new ones in this time; it needed to heal for six months, so she would have to wear a denture. I could hear the tears in her voice.

  “I won’t even get the denture until Wednesday so I can’t even go out for four days.”

  She was feeling down and who could blame her?

  Luckily Lorna got a call to say the denture was ready a day early and she was really pleased with how it looked, although her worst fear was gagging on food caused by the plate in the roof of her mouth holding the denture in. She was going to be on soft food for a while longer than we thought.
r />   Chapter 5

  Segway Slalom

  On Lorna’s return to Spain, we decided to stop off at a shopping centre in Cordoba on the way home, to pick up a few bits of shopping so that we wouldn’t have to go again for a few days.

  “Oh look, that security guard is on one of those funny Segway things!”

  A Segway is a bit like an upright motorised scooter. The rider stands on a platform and the Segway is moved by the rider moving his or her body slightly in the direction in which they want to go. To move faster the rider leans forward and to go backwards they lean back.

  I pointed towards the guard in the brown uniform. This shopping centre was one we have visited frequently and they have always had a security guard wandering both floors to stave off any trouble. Not that we have ever seen any trouble there, in fact the place had been getting quieter and quieter for the last couple of years. “The crisis, the crisis!” was the only reason we ever heard.

  A few months ago we heard some exciting news. Primark was going to be opening in the centre. Now this might not sound exciting to you over in the UK, but Spain has a disturbing lack of good places to buy cheap clothes. Everything is either fantastically smart and therefore very expensive, or at the other end we have supermarket clothes which seem to cater to the Spaniards and their delicate builds, but nobody else. We also have huge Chinese shops that sell an extensive range of cheap-ish clothes, but again you have to have the slim build of a Chinese gymnast to have any hope of wearing the clothes that they sell.