My partner and I went to Burntwood’s Alpacas and Animal Farm expecting a simple afternoon with animals, fresh air and a few nice photographs. Nothing complicated. I imagined we would walk around, admire the countryside, say “aww” several times and go home with a respectable number of pictures. What I did not expect was to spend part of the afternoon being silently judged by alpacas who looked far too confident for animals standing in a field. Within minutes, I realised we had not simply come to see them. They had also come to see us, and based on some of those expressions, I am not entirely sure we passed inspection.

Alpacas have extraordinary faces. They can look curious, offended, suspicious and mildly disappointed in you without changing expression very much at all. One stared directly at the camera as though I had interrupted an important meeting. Another looked at us with the calm superiority of someone who owns property and has excellent credit. I kept taking photos because every angle seemed to produce a different personality, although I suspect the alpacas believed I was simply documenting their good side.

The videos were even better because photographs cannot fully capture the strange combination of elegance and comedy involved in watching an alpaca move. One moment they look dignified enough to appear on the cover of a countryside magazine, and the next they are chewing with complete disregard for how ridiculous they look. They possess the confidence I would like to have when somebody unexpectedly opens the front camera on my phone.

The sheep seemed less concerned with visitors. They were busy eating and maintaining a lifestyle built almost entirely around grass. I admired their commitment. No multitasking, no checking the time, no visible anxiety about whether they were making enough progress in life. They had found something that worked and remained loyal to it.

The goats, meanwhile, seemed to have their own storyline.

I could not tell exactly what was happening, but there was energy. Someone appeared annoyed. Someone else seemed determined to stand somewhere they probably should not. There was at least one facial expression suggesting an argument had occurred before we arrived. If the alpacas were the elegant celebrities of the farm, the goats were the reality television department.

Being around animals has a funny way of making adult problems temporarily lose their authority. You can arrive thinking about work, bills, plans, chores and whatever else has been occupying too much space in your head, then five minutes later you are intensely invested in whether an alpaca is going to come closer to the fence.

It is difficult to overthink your future while a goat is behaving suspiciously nearby.

I noticed how much we laughed that afternoon. Not because anything spectacular happened, but because animals are very good at creating comedy without knowing they are doing it. A stare. A noise. An unexpected movement. One of them approaching at exactly the moment the camera is ready. The kind of small incidents that would sound completely unremarkable if you tried to explain them later, yet somehow become the funniest part of the day when you are actually there.

Looking through the photos afterwards, I realised how much of the day was captured between the obvious pictures. There were the animal portraits, of course, but there were also moments of us laughing, walking around, pointing at something off-camera or reacting to whatever one of the animals had decided to do. Those are often my favourite photographs because they were never properly posed. Nobody was arranging a perfect memory. We were too busy having one.

There is something very easy about spending an ordinary afternoon somewhere with the person you love. Relationships have plenty of photographs from birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and other occasions where everyone knows the camera is coming. But much of life together happens outside those moments. It happens during drives, errands, random days out, unplanned stops and conversations about things that will probably be forgotten by next month.

It also happens while standing beside an alpaca making comments about its hairstyle.

That counts too.

My partner and I were not there to celebrate anything. There was no milestone attached to the visit and no grand reason behind it. We simply went somewhere nearby and spent time together. I increasingly value days like that because they do not carry the pressure to be memorable. They become memorable on their own.

Adulthood can become far too serious if we let it. There is always something requiring attention. Even days off can disappear into household jobs, errands and all the small things we keep promising ourselves we will finally sort out when we have time. Then the free afternoon arrives and we fill it so efficiently that by evening we need another day off to recover from the first one.

The farm was the opposite of that.

There was nowhere we needed to rush towards. We did not need to accomplish anything. We could walk slowly, stop whenever something caught our attention and spend an unreasonable amount of time photographing an animal because its expression had changed slightly.

From the outside, very little was happening.

From the inside, I was having a very good day.

Children seem much better at this than adults. I watched them become genuinely excited simply because an animal came closer. They did not need the experience to become educational, meaningful or worthy of a social-media announcement. Something interesting happened in front of them, so they enjoyed it. That was the entire transaction.

Adults complicate joy. We start ranking experiences. A major holiday is exciting. A promotion is important. A big celebration deserves enthusiasm. But an ordinary afternoon? We often treat those as the space between the things that matter. I am beginning to disagree with that. Some of the best parts of my life would probably look unimpressive written in a calendar: coffee with someone I like, dinner at home, a drive with no particular destination, sitting with the cats, walking somewhere nearby, laughing over something ridiculous that nobody else would understand. And now I can add being stared at by an alpaca.

The animals did not teach me some grand secret to happiness, and I am glad they did not. I have already asked historic buildings, rivers and old towns to carry enough philosophical responsibility in my travel writing. The alpacas deserve to simply be alpacas. But I did notice something while watching them: they were entirely occupied with where they were. The sheep were eating, the goats were being goats, and the alpacas were watching us with mysterious levels of disapproval. None of them looked as though they were mentally somewhere else.

Humans are talented at being physically present while mentally attending six other locations. We eat while scrolling, watch television while answering messages, go for walks while thinking about work, and sometimes begin planning tomorrow before today has had a proper chance to finish. At the farm, there was not much worth multitasking, so I stopped trying. For a few hours, the muddy paths were enough. The animals were enough. My partner beside me was enough. The phone was mostly useful because the animals kept providing excellent material for photos and videos.

That is one thing I like about looking back at those clips. They are not cinematic masterpieces. Nobody carefully planned the composition. Some of them probably shake because I was laughing. But when I watch them, I remember what it felt like to be there more than I remember whether the image was perfect. I can hear the laughter, see the ridiculous faces and remember why we kept filming. Sometimes video keeps the parts that photographs miss: movement, voices, the way somebody laughs before the camera turns towards them, the few seconds before everyone becomes aware they are being recorded. Those details are ordinary while they are happening and priceless once they become memory.

The visit also reminded me that we do not always need to travel far to interrupt routine. Some of the days that reset us happen close to home. No airport, suitcase or carefully planned itinerary required. Sometimes all it takes is going somewhere different enough that your usual thoughts lose their usual scenery. The farm did that for me. Nothing dramatic changed when we left. The responsibilities waiting outside the gates were still there, work would still be work, and the house would still contain chores with remarkable survival skills. Life had not rearranged itself while we were busy photographing alpacas, but I felt lighter. That matters.

I used to think a worthwhile day needed to produce something: an achievement, a result, a completed task, at least something I could point to and say, “There, that is what I did today.” Days like this remind me that enjoyment is also an outcome. Laughter counts. Time with someone you love counts. Being outside counts. Coming home with muddy shoes and a camera roll that makes you smile counts. We spend enough of life trying to improve, accomplish and prepare. There should also be room for afternoons that ask nothing more complicated from us than to show up and enjoy them.

So yes, I came for the alpacas. I stayed because they were unexpectedly hilarious, the goats clearly had unresolved issues, the sheep had mastered stress-free living, and my partner and I were having too much fun to hurry home. The photographs make me smile, the videos make me laugh again, and somewhere among all those fluffy faces is a reminder I actually want to keep: a good life cannot be made entirely from big occasions. Sometimes it is built from random afternoons, inside jokes, muddy paths and the person beside you laughing because an alpaca has just looked directly into the camera as though it pays the mortgage.

I still do not know what that alpaca was thinking. Judging by the face, I probably do not want to know.