Tuesday 12th June and with Annette having swapped her day off and blagged a two for one ticket deal, we were off to Dudley Zoo to give Alicia her first visit. She, like most children, loves watching animals but, so far had been restricted to water fowl and farm animals but, seems quite taken with making roaring noises for bears and lions.

The day looked like it might be a bit of a washout but, we got lucky and missed most of the rain. Alicia fell asleep on the bus there but, woke up in good humour when we got to the meerkats [spell checker thinks this should have been ‘beermats’ :)] and they were in an energetic mood so kept her amused for quite some time. She quickly got into the mood of looking for animals and had a great time at the few places where she could get close enough to see them on her level: the penguins, meerkats, and lemur walk through were her favourites. Some pictures on facebook illustrate this.

Once again the zoo is undergoing a major refit and most of the pathways were either being resurfaced or had just been so. This is a bit of a nuisance but, in fairness, even with the odd school trip the zoo was more or less deserted and when we had a ride on the land train we were the only takers.  It’s route was cut short by the maintenance on the pathways but, that didn’t bother  Alicia, it was a train and the driver even blew the whistle for her.  The only real disappointment was that we couldn’t officially get to see the tiger(s). The road was being resurfaced but, once again we were allowed through by the workmen so she could see the tiger.  When we got there the damn thing was a sleep but, visible from the viewing window. However, there was a temporary barrier between us and the window and Annette refused to let me climb over to get closer with her.

The larger animal stocks have greatly been affected by the political welfare crew and the zoo no longer has elephants or rhinos, and I didn’t see any giraffes but, that may have been because of road closure. Historically the zoo has come in for a lot of stick over the size of it’s animal enclosures but, as one who has been visiting the zoos since the 1960s or possibly late 1950s, I have always thought they were quite progressive with their big cat and bear enclosures.  Even Berlin zoo has elephants and I would say despite the prestige associated with this zoo, I thought there was far too little room for the elephants they had.

Moving a bit into the reminiscence level here but, I think it is quite a valid point. As a child I remember being on my best  behaviour so I could ride on the elephant at the end of the day. I expect it was only a five minute walk round the lower levels of the zoo but, it was a real treat. Today it would doubtless be considered both cruel and dangerous by the health and safety mob, but as I recall the elephants were very well behaved and on the plus side they got to roam outside the enclosure for most of the day. Where was the harm in that? Then it became a ride on a camel but, they were always bad tempered and unpredictable and physically not on the same height as an elephant. I thought it quite sad that there were no elephants for her to see other than a cracked fibre class model of a baby elephant near the entrance to the castle. Alicia would have loved a ride on an elephant.

I continued my master plan of being the ‘naughty’ granddad by sneaking strawberries in for Alicia’s lunch. Annette had tried some yesterday and tried to tell me they were off. They had much more flavour than usual, must have been UK produced, so despite orders to the contrary I did not eat them all or throw them away. Alicia appears to have my love of strawberries and scoffed as many as we put in front of her yesterday but, the threat of the ultimate smelly nappy means I have to restrict the amount she can have. Even so, the ration of six only became ten and I cut them all up so Annette couldn’t be sure how many there were.  So come eating time Annette had given her some grapes but, I said “strawberries” and pointed at the little pot and she happily scoffed the lot. I have also started training Alicia to bang the table and say “Feed me!  Feed me now!”  She thinks this is great fun and can mimic the feed me part quite well.

For a first visit it was quite a success and I hope the zoo will continue for many years to come.  We cannot all drive through safari parks and even then there is no guarantee you will get any closer to the animals.