Whirlwind Weekend

Monday morning again, after a whirlwind weekend. Some relaxation and some stress, the usual heady mix. Dish the Dirt went well, I managed to stuff everything I needed into my allocated space, and you can still pen the doors relatively safely. Friday afternoon was an exercise in logistics. I got out of work at 12.30, tram home, lunch, packing, trip to the supermarket and then to buy a washing machine. Yes, on an already busy afternoon just the small matter of purchasing a new washing machine. To be fair, we had fair warning, the old machine had emitted some smoke a couple of weeks back, according to Mrs Zilla. It continued to work, but then last week started wailing like a banshee when it began it’s spin cycle. I really can’t get excited at the purchase of a washing machine. Normally any gadget purchase gets me at least mildly excited. The sight of rows of identical looking machines didn’t cause a ripple of interest. Mrs Zilla knew what she wanted though, and I kept Heir no.2 out of mischief while she chose which white box she wanted. Then it was to school for 3.10pm to pick up Heir no. 1 and off to the motorway to make our way to the Lakes. If we leave straight from school we can miss most of the traffic and make good time. If there aren’t any road works of course. Which of course there always are. Saturday was just as hectic. A trip to Grandma’s local town, as she’d ordered a Harry Potter DVD for Heir no.1 to watch. Naturally it hadn’t arrived, so that was a slight waste of time, but we did locate a shop that sells sweets out of jars, the old fashioned way. Cue half an hour of Mrs Zilla and Grandma Zilla choosing small quantities of nearly every variety they stocked. Which reminds me, I’ve not had any of those sweets yet. After lunch we journeyed to the nearby animal park: http://www.wildanimalpark.co.uk/ It was almost deserted and we were hoping to have good fun at the lemur feeding. They let you give the lemurs fruit, although technically you hold the fruit in your hands and the lemurs rip it from you! Heir no.2 particularly loves it, the lemurs seem like walking teddy bears to her, and she gets VERY giddy when she sees them. Unfortunately it is lemur breeding season, and most of them were locked up. There had been a lot of fighting amongst the males when all the females were in the mood. So the world of lemurs isn’t that dissimilar to the human world after all! There were one or two loose in the grounds and they investigated all parts of Heir no.2’s pushchair in their search for food, which satisfied her desire for lemur contact. It’s also apparently wallaby breeding season, as we witnessed several pairs going hammer and tong as we walked round. The emus wander round the park and are quite partial to feeding from your hand (you can buy bags of feed in the shop). Some of them appear benign and friendly, others have a slightly crazed look about them and some bizarre twitches. Of course it was one of these that pecked me from behind, much to the amusement of Heir no.1 and then consequently Heir no.2. He stopped laughing when another one turned the corner and headed straight for us! We managed to extricate ourselves without further damage. The trip back last night was a nightmare – traffic jams and road works for 20 miles. The trip normally takes an hour and three quarters, last night almost three hours. At least the Heirs fell asleep for most of the time, and still managed to sleep through last night, Hooray.