A trip to the zoo

The autumnal morning mist cleared to beautiful sunshine as we drove from Marlborough to Salisbury. We had come down with a view to taking Gwen out for the day. The Builder had been musing a day or so ago that it might be nice to go to the zoo in Bristol. I hadn’t really been aware that there was a zoo in Bristol! But it looked as though it was going to be a nice day for it.

Gwen thought that a visit to the zoo would be a good idea too. So off we went.

It is a beautiful drive from Salisbury to Bristol, via Bath. Takes about two hours.

Back in August, Barb had taken Gwen out for the day and they had hired a wheelchair for the occasion. You can hire them through the council or through Aged Concern. Gwen thought this was such a good wheeze that she decided to buy one. It’s a nifty little thing. Folds down quite neatly and the wheels come off. Fitted tidily into th back of The Vixen even with all of our clobber in there.

The other advantage to the wheelchair is that Gwen got into the zoo at a discount for a disabled adult. The Builder got in at a discount for an Ancient Monument - er, I mean Senior Citizen. I got in free!!!!! Each disabled adult gets to take an able bodied carer in for free! :-)

It’s a lovely little zoo, is the Bristol Zoo. And it was extraordinarily popular yesterday - probably because it was the first properly sunny day we have had since The Wedding. And that was the first properly sunny day in a long time as well. We had trouble finding anywhere to park. And the zoo was packed. Still, we found a table outside the restaurant for our lunchtime sangers and then wandered off to look at the place. We found lemurs and meerkats and prairie dogs. We found penguins and seals and monkeys. There are lions and okapis and tapirs. And grillers and capybaras and flamingos. And there are two pygmy hippos with an indoor swimming pool. I tried to take a photo of one for Freyja. It came up for air, I positioned the camera, it laughed and went back down underwater and swan around in circles. We played that game for a while, then I got fed up of taking photos of muddy water and put the camera down. At which point it came out and stood up for quite some time - until I picked up my camera again!! Eventually, I espied one stood quite still outside in the sunshine. I hoofed off to find somewhere where I could actually see outdoor hippos. The Good Hippo stood nice and still until I had taken my photo. I went back to find The Builder and Gwen. The Bad hippo had come out to watch me taking the photo - and dropped back into the water as soon as I reappeared in the indoor swimming pool room! I’m sure it knew!!!!!!!

Time to return to Salisbury. The Builder decided to come back via the Cheddar Gorge, where I have never been. It’s magnificent. Truly magnificent. It’s not altogether wheelchair friendly - certainly not the gorge itself which had loads of people rock climbing up and down it, but not even the village, really. So we didn’t stop for a proper explore. But it is absolutely somewhere The Builder and I will go and have a proper potter around one day. Though I think I might forgo the rock climbing and the cave exploring and just admire the crags.

Gwen dropped safely back in Nunton, we made our way to The Swan @ Stoford for a lovely dinner, a bottle or six of wine and the second half of the Last Night of the Proms on telly.

Was a lovely day :-)