Alpaca Manager Presentation No. 3

Sunday dawned bright and clear as we packed up to drive to the Fleece Show at an alpaca farm near Aylesbury. Our meal at the Spice Mahal the previous night was great. It was really buzzing but we did manage to get a table and ate so much we almost exploded. We only ordered small starters and then two main dishes (a chicken dish and a Rogan Josh) with a side order of Aloo Gobi (potatoes and cauli). The portions were large and, even with just one portion of rice, we couldn't finish it all. The food was better than any Indian food I have had back in NZ. When we left they insisted we take our leftovers in a doggy-bag and then the guy taking my payment asked if we had Indian Restaurants in New Zealand!

Bagstone Airbnb accommodation

The drive North-East took a couple of hours with just a small traffic bottle-neck north of Oxford as we negotiated yet more road-works.

The fleece show was the annual British Alpaca Fleece Show and was quite a big event. The judging of the fleeces had happened over the past two days and today was simply the presenting of prizes and an explanation by the judges of how they came to their decisions. There were around 40 people there.

After a light lunch, I gave a 2-hour presentation on Alpaca Manager. Not everyone stayed for this but there were quite a few questions from the floor and it seemed to go down well. Certainly the existing users there learned how to do things they didn't know it could do and, more importantly, I think a few will go away and try it out with a view to purchasing.

We also met up with Nic Cooper. He and partner Linda run Southern Alpacas near Christchurch. They are the people we bought our alpacas from originally. Nic in recent years has built a Hotel on the Silk Road in (far) western China and now has a farm in the south of France! This allows them to ship their alpacas from New Zealand to France and then sell them from there. This makes sense as the buyers can actually see what they are buying as opposed to buying sight-unseen from New Zealand. For those that don't know, there are many alpacas being exported to Europe from Australia and New Zealand these days.

We had a quick drink with Nic in a local pub before we heading North for our next Airbnb stay in Bainton (this is a small village west of Peterborough.) Nic meanwhile headed south to Southampton to catch an overnight ferry back to France. Ours was another 2-hour drive but, again, no traffic issues.

We arrived at around 8pm in the dark (except for the rather splendid super-moon). Finding the place was a bit of a mission but the sat nav did its job and we eventually found our accommodation. Feeling somewhat peckish we then drove into nearby Stamford and had a quick bite to eat at The Stamford Post. This is one of the Wetherspoon pubs (click here for more details about these). Miriam had a Pulled Pork Bun and chips while I had Beef'n'beer Pie (also with chips of course) washed down with a glass of Chardonnay and Shiraz respectively. Not the best food in the world and the venue was a bit tacky (not unlike a cossie club back home) but it was what we needed.

On the drive back to Bainton I reflected that England really is a country of small villages. In New Zealand I always joke that every town is almost exactly 29 kms from every other town. Here, we drove through two villages and past Burghley (of horse trial fame) getting from Stamford to Bainton and the total distance was about 5 miles!