Zoo!

So yesterday was a bit less productive work-wise than I predicted cause I went to the zoo instead! Huzzah! Adam had 2 free tickets from his job last year and wanted to use them before he left Edinburgh for good (i.e. tomorrow :( ) It was so much fun! I haven't been since I was about 9 or 10, and it's as much fun as I remember - probably more because I appreciate all the work that goes on there too. We were there for about 6 hours in the end and it didn't feel like it at all. The zoo is on a rather steep hill, so we got a lot of exercise walking up to see the Lions at the top :) And best of all we went on a really quiet day which wasn't too warm, so no screaming kids with icecream to deal with thank goodness - also meant that we had a chance to talk with the trainers and keepers about the animals, which was really interesting.
We started out by going to see the Sealions being fed and trained - they're such graceful creatures in the water, and very intelligent too. We then went up to see the Red Pandas; there are very few left in the wild now because of habitat destruction and population isolation: they do, like giant pandas, eat bamboo (which is highly toxic apparently) but the food-value derived from it is so poor that they cannot move very fast at all, rather like Koala's in that respect. When we went initially they were hiding high up in the pine branches, but we came back later we were just in time to see one at ground level, and watch it climbing back up to the canopy - it was certainly one of the highlights of the day for me. There was a talk on the herd of Bongos later on, and then the Penguin Parade, which turned out to be a penguin strole because only two of them could be bothered to go (it's a vollentary walk) but was fun none-the-less.
The funniest incident of the day was walking through the lemur enclosure and being hissed at by one of the lemurs - it was sitting on the rope overhanging the path, staring at us and hissing - I wasn't sure whether to be scared or laugh because it was just so un-threatening!
Adam's highlight of the day must have been the animal handling session: he held a snake dispite being utterly terrified of them (for obvious reasons involving a snake-pit when he was 10) - was very proud of him for that. Also got to hold a Giant African Land Snail - apparently they form their shells by consuming the bones of dead creatures on the plains :) also held a guineapig (how very scary), a cockroach and a bearded lizard.
Was a great day out, which I thoroughly enjoyed :) Much better than revison!

Other news: Mum has been organising the MacMillian charity dance in Duns - don't think she was terribly keen on the idea, but one of the new members forced the issue, so Mum really hopes it'll be a success inspite of only 40 tickets having been sold and the dance being tonight. And now I'm going to organise notes and watch a film- possibly My Fair Lady.