On Monday, while travelling through the beautiful Scottish countryside on a train headed for Edinburgh, I read Patrick Swayze’s autobiography Time of My Life and did so from cover to cover. I never could have imagined how firmly this passionate and detailed account of his life would grip me.

I hungrily turned each page, laughing as he described one of his first embarrassing teen encounters with his wife-to-be, crying when he recalled the death of his beloved father and being absolutely shocked at the number of times he himself had dodged death, until just last year when he very sadly lost his battle against pancreatic cancer. 

Today as Wild Things Live - a touring display of penguins, squirrel monkeys and exotic reptiles - visits a shopping centre in Glasgow, I think back to my younger years and brief encounters with similarly captive wild animals exploited for human entertainment...

Amongst all the many family photos my parents keep stored away in our home up on the north coast of Scotland, my favourite, and most memorable, was one of me as a little girl sitting proudly on the back of Anne the elephant. I loved animals you see, I still do, but I didn’t realise then the deep sadness that must have been so blatantly obvious in Anne’s eyes.

With only a few months before another milestone birthday, I have to admit to feeling increasingly long-in-the-tooth. So when the opportunity arose to turn back the clock and go back to school for a week I jumped at the chance!

The generous invite to spend a week amongst bright and enthusiastic teenagers from George Herriot School in Edinburgh proved to be briefly nerve-racking but enduringly inspirational.

Around this time each year, deep underground and amongst the comfort of their cosy nests, baby badgers are welcomed into the world by their doting mothers. When born, badgers weigh around 100g and are little more than 12cm long but these babies will grow up to be the fastest digging animals on earth, eating up to 200 earth worms a day. Amazing.

In around five weeks, their eyes will start to open and they will begin to venture out into the big wide world that awaits them, but little do they know of the dangers they may have to face.

On a rather chilly day last month, myself and Advocates for Animals volunteers, Barbra and Lindsay, left Edinburgh westbound on the train for Harrysmuir Primary School in Livingston. We were all very excited (and secretly nervous) to be spending the day with around 60 primary five students to hear all about their ideas and suggestions to help conserve the Scottish Wildcat – of which sadly, there are only 400 left.

We were welcomed into a very enthusiastic class keen to show us their projects. The pupils had spent weeks researching the plight of the Scottish wildcat and began devising ideas about how they could help protect this endangered species. Their finished projects were superb did not disappoint.

It’s been a hectic start to 2010 at the Advocates for Animals office with passage of the Marine (Scotland) Bill last week. The Scottish Parliament discussed a number of amendments to the Bill that would make sure seals get the protection they deserve.

If you’ve been reading this blog regularly, visiting our website, following us on Twitter or on Facebook then you’re sure to know all about the LOOK OUT for SEALS campaign.

Ooh it’s snowing!! And it has been since Thursday past, day one at The Edinburgh Ethical Christmas Fair. Heléna and myself were frozen solid after only a couple of hours at our OneKind stand but the Fair soon warmed up as the crazy Christmas crowds started flooding in. Of course, the delicious veggie curry we scoffed from the Mosque Kitchen also helped to get our blood flowing again.

Thank you to everyone who came to visit us at Fair, including little Rosa above, and to all the lovely Advocates for Animals volunteers and staff members who gave up their weekend to spread the OneKind message; Alistair, Barbra, Donna, Edna, Gillian, Helena, James, John, Kat, Libby, Pauline, Ryan and Viv – you guys rock!

I love the festive season! I love the sparkle of fairy lights, the buzz of late night shopping, mulled wine and mince pies, falling snowflakes and l love the enchanting aromas of cinnamon and gingerbread that are always so prominent at this time of year – or is that just my Starbucks soy latte?

In my first post to you all, I wanted to tell you a little bit about how I will be playing my part in OneKind Christmas by making animal friendly choices when shopping.

It’s certainly been a busy week for us here at Advocates for Animals, and what an exciting time! We took the OneKind campaign out on the road for the first time this weekend, to Scotland’s first ever Girls’ Day Out event at the Glasgow SECC, and what a fantastic response we had.

The idea of 15,000 women all together in an exhibition hall packed with high fashion, hair, handbags and general hilarity was enough to fill our male staff members with a mix of fear, fascination and bewilderment. But for us girls, it was a great opportunity to stick on lashings of extra (animal-friendly) slap, fashion our own personalised OneKind tees (http://onekind.spreadshirt.co.uk/) and sing out for OneKind living!