Thursday 6 August 2009

Wild Things


No, this has nothing to do with that film about sex, lies, murder, lesbian love and Bill Murray. This is the latest holiday report.

This morning was bright and sunny, and so Helena and I went to the Cotswold Wildlife Park. This is situated in Burford, about a million inches (17 miles) from Oxford. We got there mid-morning, and had an early lunch. As seasoned visitors, we know that the canteen always gets busy at lunchtime.

For once we remembered to take a camera with us. Unfortunately we didn't remember to take a decent photographer. Nevertheless, some of the pictures weren't total disasters. For example, here's an excellent one of a 7-legged 2-headed zebra.


At the CWP they have all sorts of creatures - lions, rhinos, monkeys, penguins, and so on. Sadly our visit was cut short by the weather, and we didn't end up seeing all of them. The clouds arrived and the heavens opened, which meant that we had to take refuge in some of the covered areas.

These areas house all of the really disgusting creatures - reptiles, bats and insects. The insect house is especially important, as I needed to check that all of the giant spiders were still there and hadn't escaped to terrorise the neighbourhood. I'm pleased to report that even the pink bird-eating tarantula was in its rightful place. If these things can catch birds, then there's little hope for us humans. The only spider picture that came out well was of one of the other tarantulas. Not pink, but still terrifying.


I did my best to get a picture of the ants for Bee, but ants are very small, even with an 8 megapixel camera.


I'm afraid that I failed to locate the aardvarks. I'm sure they have some, and I thought that they might not mind if I borrowed one to send to the ant-infested Bee. If it only it hadn't rained. Sorry, Bee.

There is a moral to this holiday report. Always check the weather forecast beforehand. Even if they're wrong, at least you've got someone to blame...

13 comments:

Jean Knee said...

FIRST!!!!

Jean Knee said...

Love that zebra. Somewhere foreign they have painted a donkey to look like a zebra

Brian o vretanos said...

Why would they paint a donkey? That's asking for trouble...

I've put a clock under Aimilia. It appears to be working okay.

Jean Knee said...

http://current.com/items/90519504_donkey-painted-to-look-like-zebra.htm

Bee said...

OMG Brian!! At the zoo there was this this this uh well exhibit with a huge man eating spider and it wasn't even behind 2 feet thick bullet proof glass!! It was just dangling there free as you please!

The sign said somehting like "don't worry, these evil spiders would never leave this habitat because they have everything they need here" and I said (when the little kids weren't within earshot) "F*CK YOU STUPID SIGN!! What do you know??" and later that night I was attacked by spiders.

Bee said...

I think you should go back for that aardvark. Hopefully they'll have one in red.

Bee said...

The zebra picture is brilliant!

Brian o vretanos said...

Jean Knee:

I thought your link was going to be amusing, but it's rather sad.

Bee:

A few months ago they had some guy handing out giant spiders to let children pet them in our local shopping centre. Needless to say Helena and I made for the exit. I only hope he got them all back. There should be laws about that kind of thing.

I'll see what I can do aardvark-wise. Don't they have any in your zoo? Or have people "borrowed" them all already?

Jean Knee said...

nah, not sad

just shows that no matter how crappy things are children are still delighted by a painted donkey zebra



going on vacation, see ya soon

for a different kind of girl said...

Are you quite sure scientists wanted us to now about that seven-legged, two-headed zebra yet?

Brian o vretanos said...

FADKOG:

The scientists weren't happy but fortunately they didn't have seven legs, so they couldn't run fast enough to catch me...

Dan said...

Wild things is a great movie, Dennise Richards was so hot! Is a Zebra white with black ir black with white stripes?

Brian o vretanos said...

Dan:

Not forgetting Neve Campbell...

I think they're white with black stripes.