It doesn't quite scan as well as the "we're all going to the zoo tomorrow" song, but it isn't friday anymore and I wasn't sure of the last line anyway. Saturday was Shona's 30th birthday and she decided she wanted to enter adulthood (she'll realise she hasn't yet...give her a couple of days) by going to the zoo and who are we to argue with the birthday princess?
I started the day at a brisk 4.30am as a man was coming to fix the shop ceiling at 6. I actually reccommend it as a waking hour. Not if you plan to have a life beyond about 7.30pm, but at 4.30 the sun was shining, the birds were singing and nobody else was on the road. And I was going to the zoo. Eventually.
I have mixed feelings about Edinburgh zoo. I was quite traumatised by the scraggy polar bear as a child as she has an enclosure that she could barely swing a penguin in and spends her time pacing up and down and up and down. She isn't the grand sparkling beast that you see on Life On Earth. As a child it made me think that maybe I wasn't that fond of zoos after all and could we please go the the museum next time we're in Edinburgh, thanks very much.
However, having been again recently with my brother and his family I realised that they do good work with breeding programs and sponsorship etc. Now my main problem with it is that it's on a veeeeery steep hill. Here are some photographic highlights of our day (I only have a camera phone...the quality is a bit rubbish, but you'll get the idea.
During a conversation at some point in my 7th or 8th year I happened to mention that I quite liked hippos. Cue 10 years of hippo gifts in all shapes and sizes. I was never given one of these though...that would have been cool!
Of course we girls loved the otters. They were snuggly and cute and were showing off for us. Also loving the koala. He was basically a big teddy bear but real. And it was warm in his house.
The animal that Edinburgh zoo is most famous for is the penguin. They have loads and loads of them, so many that Chirpy was inspired some time ago to write a musical about them (we're still waiting for it premier anywhere other than in his head). At 2.15 every day they march. At least I thought they marched. It turns out they get to choose whether to march or not and only 4 felt like it on saturday. It was nearly 5 but one got to the gate, teasing us before changing his mind and heading back in for a swim.
I ran out of space on my phone by the time we'd hiked to the top of the hill to see the big cats. There was a talk about the lions where we learned that there were some cubs (but we couldn't really see them because they were far away and the same colour as the mud they were lying in - perhaps they should dye them blue to make them more obvious) but that their dad was really jealous of them so had to live in a separate cage. the talk ended with a bit of a fizzle because the keeper didn't show up to feed them, so instead we bagged the picnic tables by staring at some Brownies till they left and fed ourselves. Just as we were tucking into our sandwiches the daddy lion gave a great ROOOAR, followed by several other shorter rhythmic roars. As J delicately put it, "I think he's having a bit of a chug". Nice accompaniment to a ham roll (not a ham shank).
And that was the zoo. Then we went to the pub. Pretty much a perfect Saturday
