Dear Deer.....

        .....or how to get Christmas off to a bang.

Last night we left the house about 10.40 to go to the first Communion of Christmas which was at Holy Trinity in Dunoon, starting at 11.30.  It was a cold night with blustery showers on the wind.

We were about half way through Glen Leann when a big red deer stag came from  the scrub on the left hand side of the road without any warning (and without any of us seeing it) and I couldn't avoid hitting  it with the offside of the Land Rover.  

The windscreen shattered but fortunately didn't come in - there was however a small hole punched by the deer's antlers at the bottom. One of the headlight and sidelight units was completely smashed  , the bonnet was bashed in on one side , a side mirror was damaged and a windscreen wiper was torn off.  

The deer hardly broke step and ran off into the dark.  It had come down a banking very fast, we think , and been unable to stop.  

We had no alternative but to  turn the car  round and limp back home ,  in torrential rain, using the remaining wiper only when essential as the other metal stump was screeching across the glass which looked as it might completely give way at any moment.

We got there  about 11.25 , pretty fed up but thankful also that it had not been worse.  If we had been in Cathleen's car Cailean, who was in the front passenger sat, would probably have been injured.  The car would also have been a write off.   I will now have to start the process of getting a repair underway,  a task I could do without. 

There are something like 75,000 collisions involving deer on roads in the UK each year and up to 20 of them involve fatalities.   No matter the other issues involved this confirms my view that there are  far too many deer in some parts of rural Scotland , an issue I have been pursuing as part of the Land Reform Bill process and on which I have already lodged four amendments to the bill.      Perhaps the deer knew....    

Anyway we were determined it wouldn't dampen our Christmas spirit today, so a happy (and hopefully less eventful) Christmas to all blippers everywhere.