Last week it wasn't so much a case of "Dancing with Wolves", but more "Walking with Pigs", which was meant to be the follow up film, but Kevin Costner changed his mind because filming clashed with "The Bodyguard" (that last bit might not be true)
My friend Vicky loves two things in life, sparkly things and animals. Having exhausted a list of sparkly things for birthdays and Christmas, we have now moved to animal themed gifts. This year we arranged for us to go walking with pigs. Well I did swim with them earlier this year, so why not take them for a walk?
Who knew you could do this in Bilsthorpe, in Nottinghamshire? There's only a few places in the UK you can do this, so we were lucky that one of them is on our doorstep.
Me, my sister Lucy, Vicky and our other friend Helen got in the car headed off, I'm not sure you could have got a group of four more excited grown women!
When we pulled up, we weren't sure we were in the right place, Stubby Pigs is on a normal looking street, but the pig sign on the door and the four snouts peering at us through the gate told us we had found the location for our morning of fun.
Rosie (the owner) greeted us and quickly introduced us to the pigs who would become our new best friends, Big Boy, Dotty, Polly, Pumpkin and Tiny Tim. We were given a safety briefing and then we were ready to go.
The pigs were all put on harnesses, which I have to say was far easier to get on a pig than it was to get on my wayward beagle Cyril! Putting a harness on Cyril is akin to trying to get John Cena in a Texas Cloverleaf (I Googled that, I didn't know what it was, but it looked blooming difficult)
We set off with the pigs on a lead, well except Tiny Tim, who basically knew the way himself, turning back when he wanted stroking or if there was food on offer.
Rosie was incredibly knowledgeable and really friendly, I think the four of us asked far more questions than a group of over-excited five year olds! The pigs we were walking were micro pigs, although apart from Tiny Tim, they didn't feel very micro. Rosie said that most people bought micro pigs thinking they would stay piglet size and then being surprised when they grew into the size of a Bermease Mountain Dog. A non-micro pig (not sure if that's the proper term) is the size of a Shetland pony!
One of the things I loved most about walking the pigs is that the people we met on the way treated it like it was totally normal to see a group of five women walking a group of pigs and shouting things like "come on Big Boy, keep up" at various intervals.
The pigs knew the route and we just followed them.
When we got back, we spent more time with the pigs. We'd opted for the "Full Piggy package" - go hard or go home when it comes to pigs right? There are other packages available and you can even hire the pigs for your event, your birthday party or your wedding! You can find out about the packages here.
We had a cuppa, fed Tiny Tim Lotus biscuits. He was very good at sitting for a treat, way better than Cyril, who will offer me his paw in a really bored manner, whilst I say the word "nicely" repeatedly so he doesn't bite my fingers off. Tiny Tim was a dream, I felt he was my kindred spirit, I'm nice to anyone who feeds me biscuits.
We then groomed them, which the pigs loved.
Rosie then introduced us to some of her other pets, she breeds ferrets and she'd just got two baby skunks. I fell head over heels in love with Meatball, he was about 12 weeks old and just the sweetest little thing. I reckon he'd make a good friend for my kitten Dolly!
We had the best time and if you love animals, then I highly recommend doing this. The pigs are well looked after, Rosie is a great host and it was just an incredibly fun morning out.
Afterwards we went for lunch and we all avoided choosing anything that involved bacon or ham, although Vicky did say she might have to return to eating pepperoni in the near future!
I know it was Vicky's birthday present, but I figured I would add it to my list of "50 Things to Do Before I'm 50", so that's a second thing ticked off the list.... 48 to go!
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