When I was at school there was probably not much more exciting than going to the zoo, I used to really look forward to trips to Drusillas and to Marwell Zoo. I followed the stereotype of an animal-obsessed girl, including a line in pets (I'm not very good at keeping hamsters or goldfish alive, don't ask me to pet-sit), horse-riding lessons (I became a master in falling off - in fact so much so they used me to help break-in the newly broken-in horses to riding in a school!), membership to the RSPCA and a large Sylvanian Family collection. Well Kit's not been to a proper zoo yet, and London has one, so to celebrate my turn of the decades we dragged Nanny and Grandad there!
Being that we are in a bit of a big freeze at the moment it was quite quiet at the zoo! We weren't sure what the animals would be doing but figured that at least the penguins would be having a good time. It's marginally cheaper to head to London Zoo in the winter (which is a benefit as it is pricey - we used National Rail 2 for 1 tickets too, and Kit is under 3 so was still free anyhow).
Kit already thinks he is a tiger, and in a bid to move him out of his grumpiest mood ever (just what I wanted to wake up to on my birthday) I bought him a mask on the way in, it seemed to do the trick!
We came to the gorillas first, and I think Kit would have happily stayed watching them for hours, we had to come back to them again because he wanted to see them more! (I thought they looked really miserable - I think they probably missed having room to run around outside given the cold!).
Walking further in Kit surprised me by suggesting, when I said shall we go in and see the frogs, 'can we see the snakes?' Baring in mind he had made it clear earlier in the morning that he didn't want to see a giraffe because they were 'scary' I thought snakes were a strange choice of animal to want to visit! (We really wanted to head in there to get out of the cold for a bit!!)
Having warmed up a bit, and seen some pretty scary creatures (I don't like snakes - I blame my Dad for randomly bringing home one from work once, which escaped in our kitchen), we headed towards the penguins. They were happy to see us!
We warmed up again after the penguins with hot chocolate in the cafe and then went on search of some lions and tigers and well, no bears but 'oh my' anyhow! Kit wanted to find his tiger friends.
Kit was getting frustrated that the tigers weren't responding when he kept saying 'hello' and despite his attempt at 'grrawh'-ing at them (after a suggestion that they might not understand non-tiger language). He turned to get his tiger mask, in what I guess was a last ditch attempt to get the tigers to talk to him, but as he walked away to the buggy so did the tigers so we'll never know if the mask could have got him accepted!
We pottered around other sections of the zoo, ensuring that Kit did get to see some pigs (as he was very clear that he would have rather gone to a farmyard on the way to the zoo). A lot of the animals weren't out, but you could see them in their inside enclosures (there were even hippos in a hot-tub!). Honestly, if we went again I would be tempted to do the winter season again because of the price-drop and it was quiet so there wasn't really the worry about fighting to see the animals or queueing.
We had fun, and at the bus-stop on the way back Kit asked if we could go again tomorrow. So it must have been a good day.
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