Some weeks leave you wondering where they went. This was one of them. It was a bit of a crazy week, but a good one, apart from both Benj and Caiti having days off school due to illness. On the plus side, our first sets of guests in the gite and down at our historic Alder Lake went home on Saturday, very pleased with their time here. They’d made the most of it, despite disappointing weather, and the anglers in the groups caught some fine fish.

Caiti plus carp

Writing wise I’ve been active, but I’ve written about that on my Books Are Cool site, so take a look here if you’re interested in my creative endeavours.

Today we began our vaccination campaign on the llamas and alpacas (with an ivermectin generic). I say ‘began’ because it takes several sessions over a few days. I always hope to get them all done on the same day, but after we’ve caught and treated a few of them, the others wise up to the fact that something is going on and become increasingly difficult to catch. They actually enjoy a good gallop around the field! We don’t. Anyway, we got Seamus, Brendan, Oscar and Denis dealt with, and trimmed two sets of toenails so it was productive. The next two to be processed will be little Elrond and Plunkett. Plunkett especially needs his nails cutting. As for the girls I think are pregnant, I’ll dose them with Panacur. The jury’s out as to whether the other product I use is OK for use during gestation. Some people say it is, some say it isn’t. Hmm. That happens a lot with llamas as most of the pharmaceutical products used on them are ‘off label’ i.e. they’re not actually intended for camelids. Most are for bovines or ovines, and llamas and alpacas aren’t either of those. However, they’re similar enough for most things to work OK.

Ellie and Mellie have evaded capture so far!

I made the most of the beautiful summer weather today to take some photos in Boussac while waiting for judo to finish. I concentrated on the poids public, the public weighstation.

These are everywhere in France and have been preserved as historic monuments. The department in charge of maintaining them is DRIRE (the Direction Régionale de l’industrie, de la Recherche et de l’Environnement). Most of them were installed during the 19th century, but had become obsolete by the end of it. Like Boussac’s, they were usually close to the railway station and market place. Vehicles were weighed on them on the platform.

Boussac’s poids public has been glassed in so that you can see the old mechanism inside. (And see me in the reflection!)

And a final word about knitting to end the knitting blog week. Knitting routines are the subject today. I usually knit on car journeys or in front of the telly, but haven’t done either of those lately. Chris hasn’t driven me anywhere for a while, and I don’t watch telly any more as I keep blogging instead!

But I feel the need to knit, so I’ll just have to blog quicker …