Reindeer

It was our last day in Aviemore today and I can't come to Glemore without visiting the reindeer so we were up on the morning hill trip.

Sadly, my adopted reindeer Pagan passed away in the summer, leaving a calf 'Winnie' who was being hand reared.  Winnie was very friendly and walked with us for a bit of the board walk.  My new adopted reindeer is Pumpkin who is Pagan's daughter, and Pumpkin was sequestered in one of the breeding pens with Sherlock so we didn't see her.  Apparently she does have some of her mum's attitude though which is good to hear!  We saw Texel - Euan's adopted reindeer, and I got to hand feed her, she was super greedy and was very happy to have lots of handfuls of feed from the visitors.  We got to watch one of this year's breeding bulls - Jelly Bean, try his luck with some of the females, but they weren't having any of him!

Blips is of a reindeer whose name I didn't catch but who was looking magnificent. 

We headed home at lunchtime and I was initially enjoying the beautiful weather in Aviemore which changed drastically as soon as we hit Dalwhinnie.  Heavy downpours, scary winds and lots of white-kncukle-gripping-the-steering-wheel driving.  I got us back to Glasgow safely however, in time to drop P off to college and for me to head to the UCI volunteers party. 

It was nice to catch up with a few of the volunteers from Glasgow Green, though not everyone could make it as many had travelled to stay for the week.  We had some good food and were made to do the YMCA.  

P had volunteered to do the first student presentation for the year at college which he was nervous about, especially given the size of the group with the new students.  It went really well though by the sounds of it and seems like he got the new year group off to a better start then his group last year.  

Bit dramatic on the way home, had a police car break suddenly infront of us and pull over onto the hard shoulder.  Thought they wanted us to stop so we pulled over too.  Turned out they were responding to someone on the bridge above and told us to carry on carefully. Hope the person ended up getting some help.