Seriously Mum, Where's that Donkey?

by Parks, Alan

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  http://eepurl.com/PyrLv

  Also by Alan Parks

  Seriously Mum, What’s an Alpaca?

  So what happened next?

  When we arrived at The Olive Mill in January 2008, I distinctly remember Caroline, the previous owner, telling us something.

  “There’s a black and white cat here, but if you stop feeding her she’ll soon disappear,” she said.

  We hadn’t planned on keeping cats and Geri, our dog that we had brought over to Spain with us, wasn’t very good with them anyway, so we tried not to show the black and white cat any encouragement, thinking she would eventually disappear as promised.

  We didn’t see much of the cat around. Sometimes we’d see a flash as something ran out of the barn, or under a pallet of building materials. She was probably living off thin pickings, like little lizards and mice. She was our live-in pest control.

  “I’ve just seen the cat with a kitten in her mouth. She shot under the pallet of bricks at the back and now I can’t see her,” I said to Lorna one day.

  This continued and occasionally one of us would see something out of the corner of our eye, but she never let us get close.

  That first year was a blur. We had gained four dogs, had health problems with the alpacas after they arrived and eventually sold our house in the UK and began work on The Olive Mill.

  We didn’t have time to be chasing around after a stray cat, but we didn’t know then what was in store.

  Alan

  The story continues in Seriously Mum, How Many Cats?

  Contacts and Links

  We welcome contact from anybody interested in hearing more about our life, or about alpacas in general.

  Email

  lornaalpacaselsol@gmail.com

  Facebook

  http://www.facebook.com/al.parks

  Facebook Page

  http://www.facebook.com/whatsanalpaca

  Blog

  www.whats-an-alpaca.com

  Lorna’s Blog

  www.lornaslifeinspain.blogspot.com

  Twitter

  https://twitter.com/alpacabook

  If you would like to visit us and the alpacas here in Andalucia, we would love to hear from you.

  Acknowledgments

  Firstly, and most importantly I would like to thank everybody that bought or downloaded Seriously Mum, What’s an Alpaca? It has been a great surprise to me to get such great feedback and support from readers. I didn’t expect to be writing a sequel within a year, but we had so many lovely requests, I just had to sit down and do it.

  Many, many thanks, once again, to our great friend Jo Roddick, who kindly copy-edited this book in her spare time.

  And thanks, of course, to Victoria Twead and www.antpress.org for her continued support in this crazy world of self-publishing.

  This summer I launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for a PR campaign, which has sadly faltered somewhat, although November is shaping up to be a great month. For their support in this project I would like to thank…

  Yolanda Solo, Molly Sears-Piccavey http://www.piccavey.com/, Diane Ziomek, Sandy Barrett, Sophie Cullinan, Christopher Wingrove, Lisa Sadlier http://familylifeinspain.com/, Tottie Limejuice, Diana Berryman, Andy Foley, Owen Wallis, Clare Monson, Suzanne Lawrence, Gaynor Rome, Karen Knight, Joanne Smart, Nikki and Ray Mansell and Kaz Gaisford.

  I would like to say very special thanks to the following people who dug very deep in their pockets to support the project. Jenny Prus, Suzanne Coldham, Jan French, Louise Powell, David and Diana Worthy, Russ and Trish Pearce, Lynsey Drake, Tony Burns and Sue Sharpe.

  Of course I would like to thank my Mum for her continued support, and Lorna for putting up with me during stressful times. Having said that, without stressful times there would be no book.

  About the Author

  Alan Parks was born in Eastbourne in 1978, and moved to Andalucia with his partner, Lorna, in 2008. Since then they have endured good and bad times in equal measure. In 2012 Alan published his first memoir, Seriously Mum, What’s an Alpaca? Owing to its popularity, he was encouraged to write this sequel describing even more of his and Lorna’s (mis)adventures.

  Copyright Notice

  Text © Alan Parks, 2013

  Cover by Noemi Gambini, 2013

  Published by Alan Parks, 2015

  First Edition

  The author reserves all rights. No part of this ebook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.