Zoo
I take the monkeys to the London Zoo on a lovely bank holiday - the first in like ten years. We drive northwest to our old stomping grounds Regents Park and Primrose Hill and surprise! no parking, just like old times. Undaunted we end up in nearby St John's Wood and I don't mind the walk though the kids complain - oh, sweet hardship. The zoo BTW is the world's oldest scientific zoo and was opened on in 1828. It was originally intended to be used as a collection for scientific study, I learn from a grounds person. It was opened to the public in 1847. Today it houses a collection of 704 species of animals, with 16,802 individuals, making it one of the largest collections in the U.K. (I learn from their website). Physically the zoo is a wonder nestled inside Regents Park with an underground connecting the zoo's outer perimeter to the inner otherwise separated by the Regents canal and the Outer Circle road (got that?). Our favorites are the gorillas (remarkable), giraffes (walk-up observatory), reptiles (vipers and poisons) and of course the lions, who chill out in the 70-degree weather. Just like the Ngorongoro crater, I am sure. From the zoo we go to Primrose Hill, spread a linen blanket and play footie or do nothing before home - the kids strip for the car ride. Tonight: pizza and a movie. Perfect.
In their own words:
"Is there anything that will interest me here?" Eitan asks by the Lion's den
"That one is riding on top of the other's back." Eitan by the Llamas
"Daddy it is so cute!" Madeleine on the naked, eyeless, mole rat
"I wouldn't want to be in that garden." Madeleine seeing the hissing cockroaches
"Lookit - that one has big lips." Madeleine on a sea anemone
When I tell the kids "I've had it - no ice cream" if they say it again, Eitan spells out ice cream
"I am dying for an ice cream. I've been waiting for hours!" Madeleine just won't give it up
Madeleine sees a feeder in the vulture cage: "why can't we go in there?"
In the reptiles den I ask Eitan why it might be an advantage to have cold blood. He begins: "Imagine if you were in a jacuzzi...."
Me to Madeleine: "The only thing I want is for your to be happy."
Madeleine to me: "I would be even happier if you just went away."
We make animal sounds on the car drive home
