One word? When seven would do…

Saturday started slowly as we were all still in post camp recovery. Scarlett and I are suffering from Camp Cough, Davies seems to be going down with it and Ady has thus far escaped but will probably be next.

Heavy rain overnight had washed away pretty much all the snow much to the kids disappointment. Our original plan for the day had been Wildlife Explorers in the morning folllowed by a visit to an armoury in Chichester in the afternoon to look at guns and knives as weapons seem to be the gift of choice for all of us this Christmas.

Wildlife Explorers had been cancelled though so we had a lazing about morning and were slack to get going really. We’d realised Christmas shopping would be starting in earnest everywhere so actually fighting our way into Chi would be silly.

The other three had a game of Monopoly and then Scarlett had a wobbly moment. Not at all sure what brought it on, well aside from being very tired and not 100% well and feeling that she is hurtling further away from having once been my little tiny baby. So she required some serious cuddling and reassurance and her and I looked through some very early photo albums and her baby books.

Scarlett loves looking at photos from times gone by which means Ady has been saying for a while that a digital photo frame would be a good gift for her. Yesterday we put it to her and she adored the idea.

So after a quick look at a garden centre which might have had knives but didn’t we went to Sainsburys and then Asda to get a few bits including a digital photoframe for her.

Back at home I was adamant they would have an early night so they had early dinner, bedtime story (we’re reading the latest Mr Gum) and then they were in bed and sure enough asleep at a very respectable hour.

I was on track to blog the week when the phone rang and it was my friend Heather from NZ. I worked with her some 13 years ago and we really hit it off, met her husband when I used to drop her home on a Friday after work and pop in for a glass of wine and then Ady met them too and we all became firm friends. They have a daughter 4 years older than Davies and were really good friends to us in the early days of having a baby. Within a year of us moving to Manchester they moved to NZ (for Heather it was moving home) and aside from a brief visit from Derek when he came home for his dad’s funeral we’ve not seen them in the 8 years since they left. We were really good at staying in touch but it slipped to an annual Christmas phonecall and in the last 2 or 3 years has slipped to nothing. I think of them often, they crossed my mind for several reasons last week while we were away so I was thrilled to hear from them.

Derek is on facebook and had been searching for me as well as googling me – quite reassured they didn’t find me til about page 4 and that was an old TV interview Davies and I did for Miranda. So we had a very happy hour catching up on all sorts of news and have since exchanged a flurry of emailed pictures. Made me feel most warm and fuzzy but did prevent me from blogging and then I realised just how late it was and just how early I needed to be up today so I went to bed.

Sunday Today was the day for Scarlett’s birthday treat. Both children have had a couple of big hiring a hall birthday parties (Davies 6 Wallace & Gromit, 7 Doctor Who. Scarlett 4 Princess Party, 5 disco) and the last 3 years have had a celebration at camp – for Davies this has been in a field at the Sustainability Centre, for Scarlett at Christmas Camp. I like the idea of an experience as a present, both to cement memories of a special day and because it’s less stuff in the house – even more important this year while we are shedding stuff. Davies’ Campcraft Sleepout was a really good gift for him and I wanted to find something equally as good for Scarlett. We spent ages researching, emailing and ringing places to try and get something suitable organised along her favourite theme – animals. Eventually after much deliberation she decided she’d like to just have a day trip to the zoo, the day before her birthday so Ady could come along too.

The zoo was one I’d heard about last summer from a friend of a friend and earmarked as somewhere to think about taking Tarly and it turns out is featured on one of her most favourite TV shows – Roar. Further research showed a simple day trip with an upgrade to the safari would be ideal for her so we traded in some Tesco vouchers and planned to go today to Port Lympne – chosen the day before her birthday so Ady could come along too.

I’d checked their website and it said they were open every day except Christmas Day and had some very up to date information about the gorillas being given advent day themed enrichment activities so it wasn’t until we pulled into the car park that it occured to me they might not actually be open… It had been a longer drive than I’d expected and we’d driven through some really heavy snow with the M25 the quietest I have ever seen it.

We walked in and I asked the very friendly women in the shop if we were the only people at the zoo, they answered no, we were numbers 5,6,7 and 8! 😆 We booked onto the 11am safari (which they radioed ahead and had not quite left so waited for us) and dashed down to join the other 4 people on board the jeep.

Port Lympne is very much about the conservation and protection of animals. They go to great lengths to remind you they are ‘not a zoo’ but are a ‘wild animal park’, with animals given as close to their natural environment as possible to live and roam in. This means they are not on show as such and there is no guarantee you will actually see everything, more than you are being invited for a peek into the animals homes and if you are lucky you may catch a glimpse of them. I really like this, it removes the aspect of zoos that I am always rather uncomfortable with that these animals have been put on show for my entertainment.

So first the safari – an open sided jeep on very steep landscapes going through heavy clunky gates and fences felt really quite authentic. The recorded commentary was a bit patchy – not sure if that was how it’s supposed to be, a result of the weather or just in line with the slightly tatty feel of the place generally. The guy driving the jeep did the odd bit of pointing stuff out but he had this really raspy voice and a dodgy London accent that made him sound like he was trying to sell us the animals at knock down prices rather than telling us about them 😆

We went ‘across the plains of Africa’ and saw various grazing animals; rhinos, all sorts of antelope and deer, zebras, ostrich and then had to stop for giraffes to cross infront of us.
” alt=”” />

We stopped at a gift shop to look at meerkats, a few reptiles and spiders in a warm room and presumably to spend some cash ;). We obliged by buying tea, coffee and hot chocolate (which Ady cunningly topped up with some brandy he’d sneaked into the rucksack for him and I )which warmed us up for the second leg of the safari. The landscape is beautiful with panoramic views over the channel and the sweeping grass with animals roaming. It was bitterly cold and none of us could feel our toes or fingers despite gloves, socks and hats but worth it as we had the place almost entirely to ourselves.

We stopped then for lunch and were the only people in the restuarant – it was pretty pricey but we’d bought some stuff to supplement it and just needed some warm food to top up our reserves. Once we could feel our fingers and toes again we set back off, keen to see as much as possible. This time we were on foot so saw a different perspective to being on the jeep, walked round different parts and of course kept that bit warmer for being on the move.

We started at ‘Palace of the Apes’ where we were delighted with the gorilla that came rushing over to clap and snap his fingers at us. We did it back and he looked qiute chuffed back :). We stopped at Scarlett’s request to take pictures using the face cut outs – oh so flattering 😉

” alt=”” />

We moved on to the small cats – many I’d never heard of but most Scarlett seemed to know – she’d really impressed me earlier with knowing about various endangered animals and being really excited to see przewalskis horses and telling me about how they are in her endangered animals dictionary. She was right too, she showed me this morning :).

We arrived in time to see a keeper feeding some lynx and fishing cats their dead rabbits so watched as they very efficiently broke all the bones and ripped out the insides. Then we moved on to the big cats, past an asiatic dog which looked like a giant alsatian sized fox, very pretty. The lions were barbary lions, extinct in the wild for nearly 100 years but doing really well there. They are HUGE! The pride were very active doing lots of pacing and then suddenly all on the alert as though they had collectively spotted some prey. We spent ages trying to figure out what they had seen and then several minutes later a jeep arrived with their food. We watched the keepers close them into a smaller area and then clean out their enclosure before hiding food in footballs and around the area for their enrichment / feeding time. A bengal tiger was in the next area and was very beautiful – tigers are my favourite animal (closely followed by penguins). The pictures are a bit rubbish as they have the fence so prominently in them but that shows how very close we were, just about four feet away from the animals for much of the time.

” alt=”” />
” alt=”” />

We then started to walk back up to the top, passing elephants, rhinos, some bush dogs (very cute), red river hogs, cheetahs, snow leopards – their eyes looked amazing when we took pictures with flash on

” alt=”” />

We finished at a pair of lions who had two cubs. The cubs were away as it was starting to get dark but the lion and lioness did some prowling around and some roaring which is always very impressive – I remember the first time I heard a tiger roar at a zoo, it felt like an earthquake!

Finally to the gift shop 🙂 I’d said Scarlett could have £20 to spend in the shop as part of her birthday present so she could remember the day. I was so very proud of her for not choosing the biggest soft toy she could get for the money and for being really logical in her choices. She spent quite a while looking at the books but she already has a pretty comprehensive library of wild animal books so discounted them, she looked at ornaments but said they wouldn’t be great for next year. I showed her the adopt an animal packages – they had two different ones, one for £10 and one for £25. Ady was a bit horrified but I was really proud of her for going for a much smaller token for herself and donating her money to animals. She went for a £10 one for a tiger and has a very cute small soft toy tiger and a certificate to print off online. She also bought a tiger notepad and a tiger pen and has saved the rest of her £20.

It was her dream day really – loads of animals, in a place she felt really happy seeing them, she spent her money on helping them 🙂
” alt=”” />

We sang Christmas songs all the way home, food and bed for very tired children for Scarlett as the last time as a seven year old.

” alt=”” />