Ben's female alpaca at Whiteway Colony fete

I drove up onto to the higher Cotswold plateau just north of Bisley to take Helena to the Whiteway Colony fete where she had a stall. It is an interesting settlement, which I expect she will write about when she blips. We've visited their fete on several occasions, but they have always been lovely summer days, unlike today when it has drizzled under a grey cloud cover all day.

While she was setting up her stall after we had erected our gazebo, i walked to the adjacent stall where a man was setting up his pens for his alpaca animals. I offered to help him, and found out his name was Ben H., and all I needed to do was to hold the reins of his adult female which he'd just brought out of his van. Ben then went back to get her two month old baby alpaca, and you can see him holding it in the background.

Whilst holding the reins the female made some delightful, though slightly mournful or worried noises, and then different sounds emerged when Ben brought the last alpaca, an adult male. The three together then made other weird but delightful noises when soem shetland ponies were brought to a neighbouring stand and then an Alsatian dog made them concerned again, before they finally settled down.

They were delightful animals and I really liked stroking them and looking into their eyes. I chatted at length with Ben and learnt a lot about the alpacas. He breeds them at his local stud on farmland in the Painswick valley. I then realised that I had photographed (and blipped) part of his from herd from the far side of the valley some months ago.