Lady Maairy tours South America!

1. Townley Park, Burnley

2. Lima

3. Machu Pichu, Lost City of the Incas in Peru

3. Iguassu Falls, Argentina

4. Copacobana Beach, Rio

Barely time after my trip to New Zealand to wash my socks and pack some clean PJ’s and Dick says i’m off on my travels again – this time on a ‘whistle stop’ tour of South America with his sister Anne Pearson. I have two concerns. One is that I don’t trust Alpacas and the other is ‘Will I be home for Christmas?’ as to be honest I’m starting to miss some proper ‘bleeeeether’.

So after a brief visit to Townley Park, Burnley (1) and flights to Manchester, Heathrow, Madrid, and Lima I was thrown out onto some busy streets (2) to try and find a blade of grass –unsuccessfully – and the driving really does take some bleating.

This was even worse later in the tour on the Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenes Aeries, which claims to be the world’s widest Avenue at 16 lanes. I just closed my eyes, crossed my toes and prayed.

On to Cusco and here I am in Macchu Picchu (3), the ‘Lost City of the Incas’, which is so high up (8,000ft) it sent me dizzy. Lots of people made a fuss of me and wanted to take my photograph. 

This is really a place everyone should visit once in their life, deserving of its position as one of ‘The new Seven Wonders’.

Apparently it was really buzzing about 550 years ago in the days of Emporer Pachacuti who built some fantastic stone walls that not even the famed Northumbrian farmers of the Coquet valley can compete with. The most famous piece is a ‘sacrificial’ stone that, Anne promised me, was reserved for alpacas only, serves them right.

The Spanish conquest apparently were close about 1550 but missed wrecking this wonderful site due to an over-large late lunch and siesta so it remained ignored until 1911, which I think is just after 7pm so it was probably getting dark by then.

The next wonderous site was the Iguassu (4) falls which is on the border between Argentina and Brazil. We saw this 2.7km cascade from both sides – and the air! Although there is a huge single ‘horseshoe’ where the drop is 82 metres, there is supposed to be 275 separate waterfalls and cataracts – this must be the South American version of counting sheep!

I think the falls were very pretty but the spray got in my eyes and my coat got wet – I don’t want to end up getting fleece rot!

The last stop was Rio de Janiero where I was really looking forward to having my photo taken at the statue of Christ the Redeeemer, having been fascinated with biblical stories since my visit to the Holyland.

Unfortunately a cloudburst sent us running for cover just after we came off the cable car – and I had only just dried out!

So time to relax before heading home - who would have thought a ewe like me would be allowed to sunbath naked on Copacabana beach (5)?

Ok it must be getting near Christmas by now and I really must be getting back for the flock family gathering. Hopefully that will be me done with flying – I wonder just how many miles I’ve travelled this year?

Take me home, please!!

Oliver of Otterburn in Vietnam

Ray & Oliver visit friends My & Minh in Saigon

My & Minh's appartment is on the 15th floor

Ho Chi Minh's statue

Cyclo riding through the streets of Saigon

Smiling water seller

 My last report came to you from Cambodia where I have been traveling with my usual shepherd, Ray. Because it is right next door, Ray took the opportunity to go to Vietnam, principally to visit his two good friends My & Minh Nguyen who live in Saigon.
the Americans.

I am very popular with the girls!

 Of course I went along as well.

My owns the MMSoft Company

I was surprised to find the office decorated for Christmas

Here I am meeting the staff at MMSof

It wasn’t long before we were eating some of the delicious Vietnamese food when My & Minh took us to a riverside restaurant which was delightfully cool after the heat of the day. My & Minh live in an apartment on the fifteenth floor of a new building that looks right
over District One of Saigon. This is a huge bustling vibrant city of about eighteen million people. It is now also known as Ho Chi Minh
City and it is about as different from Northumberland as you can get.
There is not much green grass to be seen.
Talking about Ho Chi Minh, we went along to visit his statue. He is the primary figure in modern Vietnamese history, the leader in the

eventually successful fight for independence against the French and I went for a cyclo ride through the streets of Saigon. This is pretty

wool-raising stuff as you sit in a chair in front of the pedaling cyclo driver. That means that you are very immediately face to face
with the traffic whirling around you. It is not for a faint hearted sheep, I can tell you.

Vietnam is so picturesque and so different. Every kind of thing is
available for sale on the streets and there are many smiling ladies
with distinctive conical hats that sell water and tasty eatables.

Everywhere there are pretty girls and, luckily for me, they like to
run their fingers through the wool of a strange looking creature like
me.

One morning I went along to the office of the MMSoft company. This
small IT Consulting company is owned by My. I was very surprised to
find the office decorated for Christmas because Vietnam is
predominantly Buddhist. I was able to meet the staff. They are all
very bright young people, all very cheerful and happy to meet me. They
are the future of this dynamic Asian country where prosperity is
growing rapidly after the traumas of not so very long ago.

Lady Maairy 'My year in the SVS'

 It has taken me a few weeks to get over the Christmas party so here I am writing the last blog for my travels of 2011, in March. I know I said I was a bit sick of travelling by the end but it was rather exciting and I’ve already got offers for Central America, Sri Lanka and the Great Wall of China in 2012 so I may yet be tempted to get my back-pack out again – is this in the rules Sue?

One of my ancestors?

When Dick offered me the opportunity to be a ‘SVS’ ambassador for the year of our travel I was a bit worried by the sound of it. I envisaged some sort of sheepish SAS and I just couldn’t see myself yomping over hundreds of miles of marshland, sleeping rough (no self-respecting ewe would want to do that) and eating whatever I can find in the hedgerows -What do they think I am? A GOAT?

The Little Mermaid statue, Denmark

But no, this SVS turned out to be rather more civilised. The Sheep Veterinary Society are a rather educated lot and claim to know a lot about sheep, although privately they admit that there seems to be an awful lot they don’t know! Just ask them about Schmallenburg virus! I’m just amazed that there is so much stuff written and spoken about our humble species! Although I know most people

in the country think that sheep have a skull full of sawdust, we sheep actually suffer from more brain diseases than anyone else!

Malvern is the home of the National Sheep Association

(Pic 1) On a tour of the new Veterinary department at Nottingham University, I found the sheep skeleton, no wonder I get some much bone ache if I’ve got all those bits!(Pic 2) I was also present at the 2 SVS conferences of 2011. The first was Malmbro, Denmark in May (OK I had to ‘photo-shop’ this picture because: a) the mermaid is in the middle of the harbour and I don’t like swimming; b) Paul Roger says all the pictures have gone missing – very suspicious, I think he must have sold them to ‘Fleece’ or one of those other glamour mags).

Called upon to help the President with his speech

Falkland Island sheep sale - (Stephen Pointing)

(Pic 3)The other was in Malvern, Worcestershire in September where I was called on to help the new president with his after dinner speech and I also hosted a quiz based on my travels. I was particularly disappointed that some of the audience obviously hadn’t been reading my blogs and even more so that Professor Clarkson didn’t know his biblical sheep references – and I was told that

'Deep sea' fishing off Jersey - (Linda Lowseck)

he’d written every book about sheep.

(Pic 4) Malvern is also of course the home of the National Sheep Association, another spiritual home, and thanks to Lesley Stubbings for taking me along to their head office, although I was a bit miffed at being left outside with a paint brush! Got to admit the sign does need some attention.

SVS also lived up to their informal billing of ‘the friendly society’ and as well as the hospitality at the conferences thanks are also due to several members have taken me ‘under their wing’ with extra trips, to e.g.:

The original sheep dip in Israel -(Yoav Alony-Gilboa)

(Pic 5) A Falkland Islands sheep sale (Stephen Pointing)

(Pic 6) ‘Deep Sea’ fishing off Jersey (Linda Lowseck)

(Pic 7) The original sheep dip in Israel (Yoav Alony-Gilboa)

To make me feel more at home they have even held a series of meetings round the country called ‘Talking Sheep’, I’ve only managed to get to 2 of them but then a girl can only do so much!#

Just a shame that my ‘posting’ was only for a year, I hear the next International Sheep Veterinary Association meeting is in New Zealand, February 2013. Now I really fancy (another) trip there!

Tow-rag locks Sue out of Sheep Blog

Several weeks ago, Sue found that some tow-rag had hacked into her Google email account, changed the password and recovery code which also locked her out of the Global Adventures of Northumbrian Sheep blog. Fortunately her computer guru had configured the sheep blog on his own computer so he was able to invite her back in.

The miserable hacker emailed everyone on Sue's address list pretending to be her, saying that she had been mugged in Barcelona and could they send her money via Western Union to fly home. It seems lots of people's emails have been hacked in the same scam. Fortunately, we think that no one was fooled by the request, thinking surely Sue would have asked her husband or son to rescue her .....or even one of us sheep!

Unfortunately Sue has also lost all her email address list and all the photos she had been sent to post on the Sheep blog which were stored in her email site. If your blogs have not been posted yet, and you have not had replies from Sue to your recent emails, please email her again using her old email address but inserting an extra 'e' after the first letter, which will give you her new email address. (There were hundreds of important contacts Sue fears she may never be able to get in touch with again!)

Some of us sheep have really been bitten by the travel bug and are keen to go off traveling again in 2012 so please keep checking the Global Adventures blog for more news of exciting adventures.

Best wishes from Lance the Piper, Lady Maairy, Oliver of Otterburn, Hermie and all the flock.

Christmas reunion in Hartburn

"Baa baa!... blah blah!...baa baa blah!"

Even before their boxes were opened I could hear the returning sheep as they were carried up the path by the Postman. They were all so excited to see each other they couldn't stop talking about their amazing adventures. In the end I gave them a small pine cone and the one who had the pine cone could speak while the others promised to be quiet and listen.

Not all the sheep made it home for Christmas. Some got delayed in the post. Some missed their connections. Some were having such a good time where they were, they decided to stay a bit longer....and some have not been in touch for a long while and may even have been kidnapped! We hope to hear from them soon (even if it is only a ransom note!)

INTERPOL will mount a global search for them early in the New Year and it would greatly assist their enquiries if anyone who has not seen a blog from the sheep they sent on, would be kind enough to inquire into its last known location.

Those sheep who did make it home in time for Christmas were Lance the Piper, Esther of Elsdon. Lady Maairy of Corridge was hand delivered by Dick the Vet on Christmas Eve with a pressing invitation to continue her travels in 2012. Oliver of Otterburn arrived very flat all the way from Australia. We fear he may have been run over by the Mail van or trampled in the Customs que. However, having an exceptionally thick fleece, he is non the worse for wear and a quick tweak of his horns quickly restored him to his former handsome self.

By an amazing coincidence, Zoe" of Hartburn arrived back in the same post from David and Trish in Calgary, as her good friend Matilda did from Di in Vancouver. (What are the chances of that?) Zoe" and Matilda, with her distinctive black fleece, had had such a great time together in Vancouver last March that Zoe" had invited her to come to Hartburn for the Christmas reunion.

On Christmas Day, Lady Maairy and Esther of Elsdon were still talking and spent so long in the bathroom 'powdering their noses' that they nearly missed the main course altogether.

The sheep drank lots of pink champagne and ate copious quantities of their favourite broccoli, politely declining the turkey, sausages and bacon rolls.

Each found a silver charm in the Christmas pudding and all posed for Esther to record the event.

Crackers pulled and jokes read, still wearing their paper hats they crowded round the TV to hear wor Majesty give her Christmas speech to the Nation.

Some were a bit disappointed that she wasn't wearing her golden crown studded with diamonds and sapphires, rubies and emeralds.

Lance the Piper thought one of her Grandchildren might have left it in the dressing up box.