This year, we’ve adopted a lovely reindeer called Bernard from the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre in Scotland. He’ll still be living there of course (there’s no room in the office) but he is now officially part of the family.
We’ve grown so fond of Bernard and his pals that, with your help, we want to adopt more of them. For every 50 people who click our Reindeer Love counter to show their support, we’ll adopt another reindeer, until we have a total of 20 in the BD paddock.
Our donations will go towards their food, healthcare and upkeep for a whole year, so with just one click, you could make a reindeer very happy. And not just for Christmas.
At long last, we are sat in the bar of our hotel. We’re absolutely knackered. It’s incredible how sitting motionless on a train can do that to you.
Upon our arrival, we were greeted by a friendly barmaid called Leigh, who checked us in before explaining, in detail, how to unlock and lock our room door. After assuring her we could manage, we went upstairs, found our room and dumped our luggage, and decided to head downstairs for something to eat.
We couldn’t lock our room door.
After a 10-minute struggle we admitted defeat and went to ask Leigh for help. How embarrassing.
Since the Mackenzies kitchen was now closed for the night, we weren’t able to sample some Scottish cuisine, so settled instead for Chinese (which was still local cuisine in a manner of speaking, as it was just down the road).
We’re going to bed now (in our separate beds) to get an early night so that we’re well-rested and full of energy tomorrow for our mountain walk to see the reindeer. We can’t wait! Just one more sleep!
As we (Matt & Dave) write this, we’re sat at our desk (well, our respective desks – we have one each), about to embark on our 8 hour journey to Scotland. Yesterday, we were but humble advertising creatives. Today, we become noble reindeer pilgrims.
We don’t know if there will be internet on the train, so this may well be our last post until we’re in Scotland! Wish us luck.
*UPDATE*
The train has internet! We’ve been travelling for nearly 4 hours now… and we’re only halfway there. *Groan*
Ah well, at least the views are nice.
We are chuckling in disbelief as we write this. We’re Matt & Dave, BD’s new creative team, the guys who came up with this whole reindeer adopting idea, and today we half-jokingly suggested to our superiors that they send us to Scotland to meet the reindeer herd ‘in person’ and film a video diary of our experience to post on the blog.
They agreed. (more…)
For a couple of weeks every Christmas, some of the reindeer pull Santa’s sleigh at events all over the country. We (Matt & Dave, BD’s newest creatives) called the Centre recently and they told us there would be reindeer in Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre on the weekend – a short tube journey from our office!
(Unfortunately, since it wasn’t a working day it actually meant an hour-long commute but we decided it was totally worth it.)
We travelled to Ealing this morning with all the jittery excitement of a pair of extremely excitable children on Christmas morning, and entered the Shopping Centre to find a crowd gathered around a makeshift paddock containing a sleigh and six reindeer wearing harnesses and bells. (more…)
In this morning’s post we received our adoption pack from The Reindeer People up in Aviemore. (That’s what the herders call themselves, they’re not some kind of weird crossbreed.)
It included a certificate and photo of Bernard, a handwritten letter thanking us for our support, a souvenir, a gift shop mail order form and a four-page newsletter packed with interesting stories and information written by head Reindeer Person, Tilly Smith. (more…)
Today, BD became a proud adopter of our first reindeer! It all started when we came up with the idea of adopting a reindeer for Christmas…
We discovered the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre website, where we learned about Britain’s only herd and the adoption scheme that helps support them. We loved that the adoptions last a whole year, and knew that we wanted to help. The fact that they live in our agency’s homeland of Scotland told us it was simply meant to be.
So, we have adopted Bernard, a handsome male (or ‘bull’) with a mighty set of antlers. Look at him, isn’t he brilliant?
He was born on 7 May 2006. Almost all reindeer calves are born in May to give them time to put on a layer of fat before the cold winter. It’s also so they can celebrate all their birthdays together. Probably.
According to the Centre, Bernard is very friendly and easygoing and is one of the reindeer who pull Santa’s sleigh at the Christmas events they attend. For the rest of the year, he lives with the herd on the Cairngorm Mountains.
And this is where our adoption money for Bernard will go; keeping him well-fed and looked after all year long. Many people only think about reindeer at Christmas, but a reindeer is for life.
Long live Bernard!
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