End of an era

My regular readers, and friends, will know that for the last eight years my Tuesdays have been taken up with looking after firstly, one of my grand-daughters and secondly my great-nephew Will.  Yesterday was the final day with Will as he starts school next week, so for the last day I decided to go to Woburn Safari Park, a place I have known for years. I remembered that we went there for my eldest son's third birthday when there was not much to see.  He will be 50 next year so they have had plenty of time to improve!

If you decide to go buy your tickets online as it saves time and is slightly cheaper.  On arrival you see various forms of deer some of whom I can't identify

Fallow deer that roam the whole estate

 


Is that a Gnu on the left?

 

No idea this one but I loved his colouring!

We saw White Rhino

and then entered the Carnivores enclosure

A tiger  - one of about 4-5 we saw

I also loved the gnarled tree next to it.  Next area were -

Timber Wolves

 

Black Bear....

 

….. and a cub

and then Will got excited by -

 ….. the lions

There appeared to be four lionesses but the male was in a different enclosure and difficult to photograph.

Suddenly Will shouted out; his favourite stuffed, and rather sorry looking, animal is 'Giraffey' and he was shouting "Giraffey, Giraffey" - 

This adult stood in the middle of the road whilst the traffic
piled up behind him!!

Will wanted this photo as there were lots of baby giraffes.

Then into the monkeys who took no notice of the cars at all.  My memory of this enclosure was monkeys swarming over the cars removing anything that could be, usually radio aerials, but they were much better behaved now.

Sat beside the car scratching himself and eating fleas!!

BUT there is always one

We were about to exit the enclosure when this Safari Park vehicle came in front of us with a monkey on the roof who was trying to make a swift exit, but he was spotted and left the roof pretty quickly.  Will was in fits of laughter at this!!  Not a good photo but I was driving and taking photos!!!

We parked the car and went and watched the Humboldt penguins being fed,

then into the lemur cage where they were also being fed

and leapt amongst the visitors.

This goat was in the last stages of pregnancy and she was huge

Finally, we watched the elephants and I could have stayed for ages because this one was being so clever.  Look at the bent front foot - he was pushing the earth into piles and then sucking it up in its trunk and either blowing it under its tummy or over its back

 

"Ooh, that feels better"

I am sure this photo shows him laughing!!!

So after a very long day we went home for tea.  My Tuesdays are now my own!!

I have been working on my new Project that I mentioned in July, the Marathon t-shirts of No 2 son.  These have been cut up and I have been using iron-on Vilene to stabilise the picture and fabric.

There are some interesting ones

 

Florence

 

 

 

and some smaller pieces

Examples from the London and New York marathons

and I have saved some of the "Go faster" stripes

though I am not sure how to use them.  

I am still left with this bag of off-cuts which I may use for the binding.  Ideas are still going round and round but I will need to bite the bullet soon!!  One thing I do know is that I have enough to make the front and the back.