A baby lemur, and a very close call.

20/10/12

Well it sure is cold and grey here in the UK. Today Suzanne did facepainty stuff and I went with Paul to help him out with his new super secret project. I'd love to tell you about it, but I can't. Maybe soon.

21/10/12

Juliet told us about a small zoo that was nearby that was supposed to be quite good. Paradise Wildlife Park. I'm animal addicted so we saddled up and made tracks for the zoo. here's their website: http://www.pwpark.com/index.html

The Lemurs were our first stop. hey had a fantastic enclosure. A big outdoor area, and a small enclosed  heated area for them at night time. Here are a few of them in their little house:

Bored Lemur.

Sleepy Lemur.

It's possible to have a "Lemur Encounter" for 99 GBP. You get to go into the enclosure for half an hour and feed the Lemurs. Oh wow! If we weren't on such a tight budget I'd be in there like a shot. (Paige, you would LOVE this.) Here are a few shots of a young guy who enjoyed this experience while I was there:

 There's a bowl of food in there, somewhere.

 Are you talkin' to me?

Check out the baby Lemur on mum's back.

Soooooo Cool.

These guys are like Meerkats on acid. After watching them playing in their enclosure, jumping from ropes to trees and over anything they could see, I decided that this is where the sport of Parkour came from. A couple of guys watching some Lemurs one day said "Wouldn't it be fun to be able to do that?" and it went from there. I've also decided if I'm reincarnated I want to come back as a Lemur. Anyway, enough about Lemurs. There were other animals there as well...

 A different sort of Lemur.

 My favorite birds, McCaws.

 They had a great farmyard display, and the kids could pat them. Yes, I spent about an hour there.

 Yes, another lemur shot.

The Lemur quartet.

What do you call a group of otters?

A Romp. It gives "A romp in the hay" a whole new meaning.

There were lots of other animals as well, but I'm sure you've all seen a lion and tiger before so no photos of them. With my animal addiction satisfied for the day we rugged up against the cold and rode back to Juliet's. 

This is where it got really interesting. I came the closest I've ever been to getting squished by a car. A big blue Ford Transit van decided to exit the roundabout from the centre lane, while I was next to him continuing on to the next exit. It was very quick, but I think it went like this: Brake, turn a little to avoid immediate impact, accelerate in front of van, see van over right shoulder, turn a bit more, straighten up, brake, pick an exit, line up the curb (Wet and on an angle. Oh oh!), release the brakes, throttle on, jump the curb onto the traffic island, brake on the wet grass, stop, breath. It was close. I thought about it afterwards and being a blind van there was no way he could have seen us. We wouldn't have been visible in his mirror at all either. OK, he shouldn't have turned from that lane, but he just didn't see us. The strange thing is it didn't scare me at all. As a motorcyclist you have one of these close calls every ten years or so, but like I said, this was the closest ever. Suzanne wasn't so matter of fact about it though. I think she had a little fright.

From there we went to Tesco and bought some (much needed) drinks, and food for dinner. My main thought for the day - Lemurs are way cool little dudes.