Zoo Zoo Zoo!

For my birthday present this year (again) James Deane became my favourite person in the whole universe and took me to a zoo!

This time it was Dudley Zoo which doesn't look much from the outside or from the beginning of the inside... but turns out it was actually pretty incredible. They had tigers (my favourite animals ever... level with pugs) and lions and we saw a red panda realllllly close up and kookaburras and giraffes an it was incredible.

While this isn't technically one of the best photos of the day I wanted to Blip it because look how completely beautiful this guy is, he's incredible. I've never been so close to a tiger before and it was incredible. They each had their own little personalities you could see in their faces and these huge paws and one of them was just really sleepy and the other kept seeing things in the distance and being nosey and shifting his little (huge) head around people to try and see what was going on.

And there was this really cute little baby giraffe called Peter as well. He was only a few weeks old but he was already over 6 foot. It was really cute because he was still drinking mostly milk but he was at that age where he was starting to try real food so he kept trying to eat the plants his mum was eating but he couldn't really reach many of the leaves so he tried to strip the bark instead but his little teeth weren't strong enough yet so he managed to pull a bit off but couldn't bit it so he just kept pulling and pulling at this little strand of bark until he eventually got it. It was so adorable.

What was really exciting as well was that we got to see a red panda up close. We'd never seen on so near and walking around before - they're normally sleeping in trees. But this guy came down for some food - he really loved apple - and had a little wander around, he was so sweet! He kept pulling the cutest faces as well and sticking his little tongue out. I loved him so much, James bought me my own little red panda, he's called Simon.

More of my favourites were the otters (because we only got to see one in Barcelona and none last year but there were loads this year) who kept juggling with stones, which is one of their favourite games, and the meerkats and penguins we got to see being fed, the wallaby (who I named Betty even though he was clearly a boy), walking with Lemurs where we got to see lots and lots of lemurs and I tried to teach one of high five but he just looked confused, and the monkeys with the cool hair. Plus, of course, the truly majestic capybaras.

Tea at Prezzo for much of the tasty foods. It was a really lovely day. James Deane is the best.