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It was a busy week for me last week. A couple of my workmates and I decided to run an auction at work to raise money for DEC Haiti. We thought our colleagues might pull some random crap out of their spare room to donate. But it became larger than what we imagined. One of the bigwigs found some signed framed prints by a famous artist, a brand new digital scaletrix and an antique crocodile nutcracker and the standard was set. Soon we had hotel nights away, a pair of Prada shoes, football memorabilia and 3 course dinners being donated, along with the expected old exercise bike, pile of books and cd’s. Then the big boss said he’d match whatever we raised, doubling our total!

I forwarded our auction brochure to a few workmates in London hoping they’d buy some of the stuff (they do get paid more down there!). One of them sent the local PR company out to meet us so I had to pose in those crazy high Prada heels! It was the Press and Journal photographer (yes that’s my foot in the pose link!) who came out. It was absolute chaos! In a good way. We raised over £1800 from the auction, plus another £700+ from a cake bake sale. We were completely overwhelmed by everyone’s generosity. I even managed to successfully bid on a pair of tickets to the local football game, so the following day (Saturday 13th Feb) Wes and I headed down to Pittodrie Stadium to watch our local soccer team take on Celtic from Glasgow.

We had an excellent time, despite the midday kick off and the alcohol ban. The supporters were so excited, especially the Celtic fans. Loud and a little bit scary. It was an evenly-matched game too, so good for spectators, even though Celtic were the favourites going in. And as I found out this week at work, the game will be forever known as ‘the game with all the goals’ after a 4-4 draw. Apparently the Dons hardly ever score :|

Notice all the cops in the corner?

Check out the security in between Celtic and Aberdeen fans!

We headed south today to find a cache hidden about 4 miles off the road, near a waterfall. It was a lovely low-level walk, good for winter. The fog never quite lifted, but it hardly rained at all. The hike took us past Queens Well and along the Water of Mark.

After finding the cache we stopped for a cuppa before heading back the way we came. As we were scrambling down the scree I saw ahead of us something unusual, alien-like on the ground. [The next bit is not for the squeamish] As we got closer we realised it was the scattered internal organs of a deer. We only figured out it was a deer, because one of the organs was a placenta complete with tiny dead foetus. It is easily the weirdest thing we have ever seen. I took a photo. We don’t know how far along the female was when she was killed, but the foetus is a perfectly-formed tiny baby deer, complete with hooves. Head diameter perhaps 3cm. If we had a shovel we would have given Harold a proper burial, but we just named him (obviously the gender is a guess) and hoped the buzzards would get him soon to complete the circle of life. What an odd experience. I’m including the photo; even though he’s dead, he’s so cute and peaceful.

So The Big Freeze hit the UK this festive season, which was such a novelty for us! Here’s a BBC satellite image so you can see the extent of the snow and frozen-ness.

So we went snowboarding – twice so far! The first time at Cairn Gorm with Gerrod and Kristy, the second time at Glenshee with my friend Cat’s husband and his mates. Cat was cosied up at home with little Aimee, bump and a hot chocolate. Snowboarding’s too dangerous when you’re up the duff, so she lent me her gear and off I went. And didn’t I find out how dangerous it is! Oh my tailbone. Two weeks later it still hurts when I walk and when I bend over. But it was so cool to be on the slopes doing something with Wes that he loves. He had a fantastic day up on Glas Maol in the afternoon cruising off piste from the black runs, he’s so talented!

And of course the surf is working as well, so Wes has been out in the water too (I’m far too chicken to get wet in this weather – water temp seven degrees).

We’ve also been out walking/geocaching. I’m completely addicted to geocaching now.

We were blessed at Christmastime with the company of Gerrod and Kristy. We had a lovely turkey, presents and vodka shots time with them on Christmas Day, before we headed west for our mountain adventure.

As you may have read, we had some car trouble, in fact Wes at first didn’t want to drive it at all! But we convinced him we could call the AA if he got really worried, and his worry was justified when the whole exhaust fell off! Lucky we are members of AA (we joined when we bought the mini), and they came to our rescue!

We managed to squeeze in a day of skiing, we’ve been blessed with the ‘best snow conditions for 15 years’ this year, so we were in luck! Unfortunately the visibility the day we went (27th Dec) was so poor, down to 10m at times. Ok for me though – I had my first snow sports experience ever. I had a snowboarding lesson, and I was only going 10-20m at a time anyway!

Even though it’s flippin freezing, it’s really beautiful in Aberdeen. Y’all should come visit! Happy days! Here’s to a rocking 2010 everyone.

We popped out this arvo to nab a couple more geocaches, and it was a gorgeous sunset.