Lions, lemurs & bird-eating spiders

Yesterday Peter and I went to the Bristol Zoo. Its not very far from here, though we ended up taking what felt like a very roundabout way to get there thanks to Mapquest. Once there we were surprised to find the zoo in the middle of a boarding school campus ... it was kind of weird since all the zoos we've been to seem to be way out of the way of civilization. Once inside, it didn't feel at all cramped, and was a nice size zoo for a day visit - especially for a pregnant and therefore much slower and easily fatigued version of me!

The highlight of the day were definitely the seals! We got there just before feeding time and watched them show off for the crowd for about 20 minutes. They were swimming around really fast and sliding on and off rocks, and screeching and very much enjoying the attention.

The gorillas were also pretty impressive, as they usually are, simply due to their sheer size. We watched them being fed also; they were fed through a fenced window and a zookeeper was handing them food through the holes of the fence. There was a little shelf for the young gorilla, and the mother to crawl up on and sit on to eat. But the best was when, Jock, the big male (who must have weighed at least 500+ lbs.) came in for his food and decided to sit up on the shelf as well, though he was clearly WAY too big to fit there. He had to bend his neck and lean down a bit to be at the same level as the zookeeper - it was pretty entertaining.

The lions were also quite spectacular, mostly because we were able to get so close to them which I guess is one of the benefits of a small zoo. There was still a barrier, and a chain link fence between us, but I think that is the closest we've ever been able to get to a lion before. After the zoo we headed into downtown Bristol for dinner and then came home - it was a good day indeed ... needless to say I was in bed by 9:30 and fast asleep ; )





Aside from our adventures together, Peter has had yet another flying adventure to report about. On Thursday he flew in the Tornado, which is a Cold War swept-wing supersonic air interceptor (I didn't just know that, he is saying it to me as I type!) So, for the first time he went SUPERSONIC! This occurred about 80 miles off the west coast of England over the Atlantic Ocean. Now, for those of you who may not know ... supersonic means that they broke the sound barrier - otherwise known as travelling faster than the speed of sound! Pretty cool ... though he says it was a little anti-climactic because there was no sonic boom or any big acceleration, just the changing of the Mach number. However, I think its still something that he will always like to talk about ; )

That's it for us for now ... Peter is heading out of town this week, to France. I will be possibly heading back to Milton Keynes to spend a few days with our friends Dave & Kristy just to get out of the house. Hope you all have a good week!

Team PM & tadpole