I got to Wednesday didn’t I…
That was Zoo Day. I’m sure I’ve blogged before over the years about my feelings on zoos. I like the conservation work they do and as the parent of a child who is all about the animals I do love the opportunity that UK zoos have afforded Scarlett particularly to see animals in the flesh if not in their natural environment. I think we have probably done a large percentage of the zoos on mainland UK – Marwell, Drusillas, Port Lymphe, Chester, Longleat, Knowlsley, Africa Alive! British Wildlife Centre and now Edinburgh. Notable exceptions that spring to mind include Colchester and Whipsnade. My favourites are Africa Alive!, Knowlsely, Port Lymph and Longleat as they are more safari style and tend to focus quite heavily on natural enclosures and conservation work so you feel far more that you are getting a privileged peep into the animals world rather than them being on display for your benefit.
We walked up to Princes Street and caught the bus along to the zoo – super convenient and a bargain at just £1.50 each. Actually the kids should only have been 70p each but it was exact change only and the driver didn’t tell me a price just smiled and nodded at me so I paid £6 anyway and only realised when I collected my tickets with a price printed on. The zoo had the off duty air of any major tourist attraction in the UK in February with most of the catering places shut and keepers more likely to stand and chat with you as they had so much time on their hands compared to peak season.
Edinburgh Zoo’s main draw is obviously the pandas and the enclosure standard reflected that with loads of interpretation, signage and keeper always on hand to talk about the pandas while much of the rest of the zoo was a bit tired. There was a newly opened chimp enclosure with loads of good interpretation and interactive stuff but we just walked through there at the very end and thought the chimps looked a bit sad anyway. The big cats area was very small and the tigers (always my favourite, such beautiful, beautiful creatures) did lots of caged tiger style pacing and looked uneasy. We only saw a male lion who was also looking a bit edgey but rather amusingly eyed up all the children who walked by and barely stopped short of licking his lips :). The saddest bit was the sea eagles though – a pair in a very low ceilinged enclosure with a sign all about Rum and the release project. We spend so much time here watching them soar overhead, high in the sky amazing and free it was really sad to watch these two in their cage. The male sat and flapped his wings for ages as though he knew he was supposed to do more. I don’t know the history of the pair there, presumably they have been captive since hatching so have probably never flown. Surely eagles above all else are just supposed to fly 🙁
All of that said the keepers we chatted to were amazing, clearly proud of the zoo and very knowledgable and caring of the animals in their charge. Â It was fantastic to see the male panda, we went back several times during the course of the day and he was very active and looked just like a man dressed up in a panda suit :). The female was close to in season and was staying put in her sleeping area off show. It was also great to see the koalas, again the only ones in the UK including the only UK born koala who very obligingly sat and ate eucalyptus infront of us. I also liked the wallabies who were in a great enclosure that you could walk through and one of them had a joey in her pouch. There were pygmy hippos, rhinos , tapirs and red river hogs all of whom were good to watch. The penguins were fab, Five came out for the daily penguin parade and there was a hilarious episode with a black headed gull who tried to nick some of their fish at feeding time and thought he’d got away with it only to have the penguin mob close in on him and reclaim it.
The sunbears were also quite sad, one came out and paced lots doing lots of standing up on hind legs and looking mournful.
In all though it was a great day and we enjoyed it a lot. Scarlett loved the level of keeper interaction and spent ages chatting to them about various things, particularly a penguin who was poorly and separated from the group and the rhinos who she noticed were both male rather than a breeding pair so wanted more information on the dynamics of.
Both the kids spent some of their money in the shop at the end – Davies bought Scarlett a panda toy which was rather sweet 🙂 Big Dave picked us up as arranged and took us along to his flat in Queensferry. He lives right on the beach of the firth of Forth between the road and the rail bridges with spectacular views. We had a cup of tea at his, then walked along to his local pub for a drink before getting a cab back into the city to meet Mairi. Dave had offered us dinner and we went to the Hard Rock Cafe, via The Dome  where Mairi was waiting with a bottle of fizz on ice :). Even the loos were posh! We had a drink in there before heading next door to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner where the kids got to pick all the songs for the evening – they chose several classics including American Pie and various Beatles songs, Dave and Mairi ordered cocktails and the kids and I spent ages wandering round looking at the memorabilia on the walls and in the gift shop talking about Hard Rock Cafes in Vegas and Niagara that Ady and I had been to. A slice of a previous life a million miles away from our current one!
Poor Scarlett was feeling the effects of the mainland finally catching up with her along with too many car and cab drives and ended up being sick 🙁 She dealt with it really well and felt almost instantly better but I did feel sorry for her. We all went back to the flat where Mairi had restocked the fridge with loads more fizz. Mairi stayed the night and we had breakfast with her in the morning before she headed off to work leaving us to pack up before our taxi arrived to take us off the station.
Thursday – was the train back up to Fort William. Another gorgeous train journey although Scarlett was exhausted from being ill so slept lots of it and I was mildly hungover from excesses of cocktails and fizz the night before so also slept a bit of it. We got in just after 4pm and Lynda and Stuart who had driven up from Glasgow met us at the station. They were ready for dinner when we arrived so after hugs and hellos they headed off to eat while we settled into our room and hit Morrisons for picnic food for dinner. We went up to their room for a cup of tea and chat but everyone was tired so it was an early night all round. We did indulge in baths though – such luxury 🙂
Friday morning we met up with Lynda and Stuart again before it was time to head off to the station to take the kids to Outward Bound. There is only one train a day (weekday) so we were super early but planned to have a look around and orientate the kids a bit. We took them in, showed them how to use the payphone incase they wanted to call us and were then ushered out by the course leader who obviously felt that two children an hour or so early was far preferable to a prolonged family goodbye. So we hugged and left. Scarlett had been pretty wobbly about the whole business but we’d had a good pep talk the day before and in the end they were both far better at the slightly hurried farewell than I think either Ady or I were.
We sat down the bottom of the lane wondering what to do with ourselves and feeling a bit bereft! Lynda and Stuart had insisted on picking us up rather than us waiting for the train to bring us back four hours later (it goes to Mallaig and then comes back past again) but we had no phone signal to let them know we were ready early so ended up sitting and chatting and waiting instead. At least it wasn’t raining! Lynda and Stuart took us for a late lunch / early dinner which was very nice and included wine and beer so felt most holiday-ish.
They went off for a nap while Ady and I had a wander round Fort William for a bit before getting picnic tea from Morrisons and heading back to the Premier Inn. We met up with Lynda and Stuart for a couple of drinks in the evening which was nice, before making the most of a hotel room to ourselves with TV and bath.
Saturday – we were broke and waiting for rent money to come in on Monday having splashed out in Edinburgh and blown our budget so we walked lots and planned what we’d buy when we had money back in the bank. Very odd to be without the kids even though we spend a fair bit of time together on Rum without them these days. I had applied for a writing job one day a week which I was fairly hopeful about so we talked about that too. In the end I didn’t get that job (I heard on the Monday evening). We also talked about Rum, house builds and general stuff for the future. It’s good to get off the island every so often to gain some perspective.
We met up with Lynda and Stuart for tea / coffee and arranged to have dinner at McDonalds later. More crap TV, leisurely baths and fast food later and we realised it was Valentines Day 🙂
all of which brings me back to bedtime for today again, so this will definitely be at least one part longer before we get back to Rum.