Welcome, Gilly

AJD and Barry have returned from a successful MIT Mystery Hunt with the red panda sent in my direction in tow.  He got to hang out at the Hunt too, and apparently enjoyed it a great deal.

Here he is again, with AJD.

His name is Gilbert, because his mother was a big Gilbert and Sullivan fan, but he's usually called Gilly.  You can't see it in this picture, but he has an absolutely first-rate long fluffy tail.  I'm very enamoured of his tail.

In retrospect, it must have kismet that led us together.  The Wild Republic line has red pandas, and twice or thrice I've been this close to getting one, but there were always others too, and the red panda kept being the one who didn't make the cut.  Gilly is a much better red panda specimen than the one the WP makes.  Not that theirs is bad, but it's just not as quality as Gilly by a long shot.

Gilly is probably going to get along well with Tibby; they have a similar sort of bright-eyed inquisitive earnestness. (Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, in Gilly's case, but not in Tibby's.)  Possibly he'll also get along well with Hrithik, as two fellow tree-dwelling creatures with impressive long ringed tails, so long as they don't decide to be jealous of each other instead.  Gilly's not the jealous sort, though - and maybe Hrithik will start speaking to me again if I give him a friend.

We've already introduced Gilly to Sleepyhead, which was... entertainingly confusing.  Gilly was told there was another panda, and he was absolutely delighted - sort of dashing around being adorable and looking all over for the other panda.  Unsuccessfully.  We shook Sleepyhead awake and set them face to face.  Gilly completely failed to recognise Sleepyhead as a panda; Sleepyhead, upon hearing "that's not a panda", concluded he was probably dreaming, put his head on Gilly's back, and went back to sleep, to which Gilly reacted with "Oooh, cuddly," not that he said so out loud. So in essence, they're getting along swimmingly, but still have yet to recognise each other as fellow pandas.