G day

Up at 6, away by 7 for the long drive into darkest Aberdeenshire. When we arrived all I wanted was a cup of tea - but we had feeding troughs to dismantle, a van to load with feed and hay and feed bins and frightening-looking medical machinery. Then we had to empty a couple of goats of milk (also called milking I guess), tag the goatlings and and. Eventually I got a wee cuppa while the paperwork was sorted. Then the goats were loaded onto the trailer and home we not quite sped.

In all this excitement the camera stayed in the van (sorry!).

As a quick aside, I need to sing the praises of the van - it coped superbly with what was a heavy heavy load. ("La la la laaaah la la"). Good. Done that.

I'd been a bit nervous of towing - I've never done it before - but it was a doddle. The worst bit was having a police car behind us for about 10 miles. I wasn't sure if the speed limit far a van towing is 40 or 50 - so I stuck to 45 and they didn't bother us. The hardest part of the journey was was circumnavigating Elgin. The town signs proudly pronounces: "Elgin - making an impression". I'd like to suggest a change to that, it should be "Elgin - making you dizzy". Sooo many roundabouts. As I was a long van towing I decided the best way of negotiating roundabouts was to make full use of every available lane. I think somewhere inside of me there's a budding trucker.

I even managed to reverse a couple of times.

When we got back we had to transfer the goats from the trailer to the stables. This went virtually without incident - only two out of the six managed to escape.......