Publication Day Push - Hate Bale
Publication Day Push
Martha, the heroine of Hate Bale, owns a couple of alpacas. And so do I.
The first camelids I owned, though, were llamas, and originally I had no plans to invest in their
smaller relatives. One of our early business ventures after we moved to France was llama trekking. People would phone up eagerly for more information, but once they discovered they wouldn’t be riding a llama around à la pony-trekking, but be keeping closer to the dictionary definition of ‘trek’ by making a journey on foot, with a llama on a lead beside them, enthusiasm rapidly waned.
However, we did get plenty of visitors and they all had a great time. They enjoyed our trails with their questions to answer en route (we’d made wooden posts with carved llama shapes on the top) and fell in love with our beautiful boys. They also spent time meeting our other animals after their trek. I began to suspect that some of our smaller visitors enjoyed cuddling the cats and guinea pigs more than the camelid encounter itself. Some seemed a little nervous of them.
I pondered this. Then one day I was out in the garden with Rors and we wandered over to the gate of the llama field, where the four boys were lined up watching us. I crouched down next to Rors for some reason, and looked up. And up and up. It was a long way to a llama’s head from here. No wonder our young guests were somewhat wary of an animal that took on giraffe-like qualities to them. Thus began the search for alpacas. Alpaca trekking would be more child-friendly than llama trekking.
Alpacas are fiendishly expensive. It took a while to track down some we could actually afford
without having to sell one of our children first. We eventually found two young males for sale up in Brittany. They were being advertised as “mini-llamas”. The farm specialised in diminutive everythings, from mini-cows and mini-sheep to mini-rabbits and mini-goats. And alpacas, under this new identity. Husband Chris and eldest son Benj spent an exhausting day making the long drive to the north-west of France. They spent about thirty seconds at the farm. They handed over the balance of the money (I’d paid half as a deposit) to the vendor, who picked up the alpacas by the scruffs of their necks and plonked them in the boot of our Renault, waved goodbye and strode off.
The lads had hoped for a cuppa, maybe a quick leg stretch and a look at the other animals and, at the very least, the offer to use the loo, but that wasn’t to be. This was a totally business-orientated deal. None of the usual niceties you get when parting with over a grand on a purchase.
Brendan and Seamus were six months old. Brendan was chocolate brown and Seamus was a sort of caramel colour. They had had huge black eyes, long lashes, divinely soft woolly coats and were tiny.
Well, in comparison to a llama. We’d got used to towering camelids around us so we were having to scale down now. They were good little chaps. They’d been no bother on the drive home, kushing down politely on the hay in the back of the car (poor Chris, this car had been his pride and joy back in Ireland) and occasionally raising their heads for a peer out of the window to see where they were and surprise the bejayzus out of passing motorists. They remained well-behaved at the farm and proved easy to halter and trek train. All our camelids had collars – handy to grab them by – and so we needed collars for the two newbies. The llamas wore broad, hard-duty nylon webbing affairs with
disappointingly feeble plastic clips that never lasted long. We now needed something less chunky for the alpacas. I found some smart dog collars with bandanas in a hardware slash garden store: blue for Seamus and red for Brendan. The boys looked great in these and the cheery bandanas gave them real personality. Seamus needed the most help here as he was a very sweet but incredibly dim alpaca. Brendan was the natural leader of the two and a tad feistier, but only in the way that a slug is
feistier than a pebble. The two boys proved a big hit and alpaca trekking really caught on.
I went on to buy two female alpacas, Amelie and Ciara, and we’ve had several baby alpacas born here now. We no longer do trekking so my little herd of llamas, alpacas and some unintentional cross-breds all live a lazy and peaceful life of leisure. Lucky things!
Hate Bale
by Stephanie Dagg
On my blog today I have the pleasure of sharing with you.....
Hate Bale
I would like to thank Rachel Random Resources and Stephanie Dagg for inviting me to Celebrate alongside the
Publication Day Push
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Book Information
Grumbling guests and escaping piglets are precisely what Martha doesn’t need. She’s already struggling to run a holiday cottage and a rather large smallholding single-handedly. Since her husband Mark died, three years ago, her rural property in France, beautiful as it is, has become an increasingly heavy millstone around her neck.
So whilst she’s horrified to stumble across a corpse at the local farm supplies shop, it does at least distract her from her own woes. Best friend Lottie, the cheese to Martha’s chalk, swoops in to offer moral support, and encourages Martha to join her in some unofficial sleuthing. Meanwhile, police officer Philippe Prudhomme, a former fellow chess-player of Mark’s, undertakes a rather more professional investigation.
However, despite everyone’s efforts the killer remains at large. And when more bodies (one and a bit, to be precise) come Martha’s way, it definitely feels like he’s closing in on her…
There’s suspense, humour and excitement in this entertaining cosy mystery set in the French countryside.
Purchase Link - getbook.at/HateBale
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Author Guest Post
Martha, the heroine of Hate Bale, owns a couple of alpacas. And so do I.
The first camelids I owned, though, were llamas, and originally I had no plans to invest in their
smaller relatives. One of our early business ventures after we moved to France was llama trekking. People would phone up eagerly for more information, but once they discovered they wouldn’t be riding a llama around à la pony-trekking, but be keeping closer to the dictionary definition of ‘trek’ by making a journey on foot, with a llama on a lead beside them, enthusiasm rapidly waned.
However, we did get plenty of visitors and they all had a great time. They enjoyed our trails with their questions to answer en route (we’d made wooden posts with carved llama shapes on the top) and fell in love with our beautiful boys. They also spent time meeting our other animals after their trek. I began to suspect that some of our smaller visitors enjoyed cuddling the cats and guinea pigs more than the camelid encounter itself. Some seemed a little nervous of them.
I pondered this. Then one day I was out in the garden with Rors and we wandered over to the gate of the llama field, where the four boys were lined up watching us. I crouched down next to Rors for some reason, and looked up. And up and up. It was a long way to a llama’s head from here. No wonder our young guests were somewhat wary of an animal that took on giraffe-like qualities to them. Thus began the search for alpacas. Alpaca trekking would be more child-friendly than llama trekking.
Alpacas are fiendishly expensive. It took a while to track down some we could actually afford
without having to sell one of our children first. We eventually found two young males for sale up in Brittany. They were being advertised as “mini-llamas”. The farm specialised in diminutive everythings, from mini-cows and mini-sheep to mini-rabbits and mini-goats. And alpacas, under this new identity. Husband Chris and eldest son Benj spent an exhausting day making the long drive to the north-west of France. They spent about thirty seconds at the farm. They handed over the balance of the money (I’d paid half as a deposit) to the vendor, who picked up the alpacas by the scruffs of their necks and plonked them in the boot of our Renault, waved goodbye and strode off.
The lads had hoped for a cuppa, maybe a quick leg stretch and a look at the other animals and, at the very least, the offer to use the loo, but that wasn’t to be. This was a totally business-orientated deal. None of the usual niceties you get when parting with over a grand on a purchase.
Brendan and Seamus were six months old. Brendan was chocolate brown and Seamus was a sort of caramel colour. They had had huge black eyes, long lashes, divinely soft woolly coats and were tiny.
Well, in comparison to a llama. We’d got used to towering camelids around us so we were having to scale down now. They were good little chaps. They’d been no bother on the drive home, kushing down politely on the hay in the back of the car (poor Chris, this car had been his pride and joy back in Ireland) and occasionally raising their heads for a peer out of the window to see where they were and surprise the bejayzus out of passing motorists. They remained well-behaved at the farm and proved easy to halter and trek train. All our camelids had collars – handy to grab them by – and so we needed collars for the two newbies. The llamas wore broad, hard-duty nylon webbing affairs with
disappointingly feeble plastic clips that never lasted long. We now needed something less chunky for the alpacas. I found some smart dog collars with bandanas in a hardware slash garden store: blue for Seamus and red for Brendan. The boys looked great in these and the cheery bandanas gave them real personality. Seamus needed the most help here as he was a very sweet but incredibly dim alpaca. Brendan was the natural leader of the two and a tad feistier, but only in the way that a slug is
feistier than a pebble. The two boys proved a big hit and alpaca trekking really caught on.
I went on to buy two female alpacas, Amelie and Ciara, and we’ve had several baby alpacas born here now. We no longer do trekking so my little herd of llamas, alpacas and some unintentional cross-breds all live a lazy and peaceful life of leisure. Lucky things!
🏡🕵️♀️🏡🕵️♀️🏡🕵️♀️🏡🕵️♀️🏡🕵️♀️🏡🕵️♀️🏡🕵️♀️🏡🕵️♀️
Author Bio
I'm an English expat living in France, having moved here with my family in 2006 after fourteen years as an expat in Ireland. Taking on seventy-five acres with three lakes, two hovels and one cathedral-sized barn, not to mention an ever increasing menagerie of animals, has made for exciting times. The current array of creatures ranges from alpacas to zebra finches, with pretty much everything in-between! Before we came to France all we had was a dog and two chickens, so it's been a steep learning curve.
I'm married to Chris and we have three bilingual TCKs (third culture kids) who are resilient and resourceful and generally wonderful.
I'm a traditionally-published author of many children's books, and am now self-publishing too. As well as being an author, I’m also a part-time editor and, with Chris, manager of three carp fishing lakes. My hobbies are cycling, geocaching, knitting and sewing.
Social Media Links –
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