{"id":547,"date":"2009-06-15T16:19:54","date_gmt":"2009-06-15T15:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/?p=547"},"modified":"2009-06-15T16:44:09","modified_gmt":"2009-06-15T15:44:09","slug":"dudley-zoos-best-little-keeper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2009\/06\/15\/dudley-zoos-best-little-keeper\/","title":{"rendered":"Dudley Zoo’s Best Little Keeper."},"content":{"rendered":"

(oops this has been sitting in my drafts, I thought I’d posted it)<\/em><\/p>\n

Not Christmas gone, but the one before “Nanny Penny” bought TBK a voucher to become a zoo keeper for the day at Dudley Zoo.<\/p>\n

It was going to be awesome we were going to book it and we were going to spend a lovely day meandering around and watch TBK play with the animals all day, but then the rain came, and last summer it rained, and rained, and rained, and rained and just to be helpful, as the deadline grew nearer for the voucher to be used\u00c2\u00a0 it rained some more. So, being the diligent parents we are we promptly called the zoo and brought an extension with the hope that a time would come when the rain stopped and we could go.<\/p>\n

Finally it did, things started looking brighter and more importantly dryer\u00c2\u00a0 so we made the booking, set the date and forged ahead; But wouldn’t you know it as the date came around\u00c2\u00a0 it bloody poured down again, but, we thought FUCK IT and went anyway.<\/p>\n

TBK got up close and personal with with some animals,\u00c2\u00a0 Some he was a lot happier around than others:<\/p>\n

He met a rat ( he only wanted to hold it to upset Mom, who doesn’t really like Rats)…<\/p>\n

\n

\"Roland?\"<\/p>\n

…a chinchilla (his favourite)…<\/p>\n

\n

\"Chinchilla\"<\/p>\n

…Mr Lizard …<\/p>\n

\n

\"Lizard\"<\/p>\n

…a tapir (who is famous, apparently she’s from Longleat and was featured on Animal Park)…<\/p>\n

\n

\"Tapir\"<\/p>\n

…The Red Panda AKA The Firefox (the geek in me liked this)…<\/p>\n

\n

\"TBK<\/p>\n

…and the penguins (his all time favourite part of the day).<\/p>\n

\n

\"mine<\/a><\/p>\n

All the animals had names but I’m damned if I can remember them now.<\/p>\n

It was (despite the rain and me getting ill<\/a>) a lovely day and TBK had a wonderful experience, made all the nicer for him (and us) by the lovely staff he accompanied. They were very informative and answered any questions he (or we) had about breeding programs, conservation etc. and the zoo in general, for instance; Did you know that most the buildings and animal enclosures are listed buildings, hence the desperate need for renovation but lack of planning permission! I didn’t, I feel slightly guilty for judging them over the state of the place now.\u00c2\u00a0 Even better though, while there even I made some new friends.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Lemurs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(oops this has been sitting in my drafts, I thought I’d posted it) Not Christmas gone, but the one before “Nanny Penny” bought TBK a voucher to become a zoo keeper for the day at Dudley Zoo. It was going to be awesome we were going to book it and we were going to spend … Continue reading Dudley Zoo’s Best Little Keeper.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[63,104,105,1],"tags":[92,91],"class_list":["post-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-parenting","category-the-blonde-kid","category-wbiagw","tag-dudley-zoo-little-keeper-experience-animals-fun-day-out","tag-zoo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6WGy-8P","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":549,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2009\/05\/21\/sausage-lips\/","url_meta":{"origin":547,"position":0},"title":"Sausage Lips.","date":"May 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"For the last week or so I've been battling a cold which at 4:30am Tuesday morning it finally broke. I know it was 4:30 as that was the time the clock told me it was when I woke up unable to breathe through my nose, a pounding headache due to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Health"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":136,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2006\/08\/21\/and-down-came-the-rain\/","url_meta":{"origin":547,"position":1},"title":"And down came the rain…","date":"August 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Saturday at V and it rained and rained and rained. AND THEN rained some more...It started as we were waiting to get in and continued throughout the day varying in its intesity but never quite stopping!HOWEVER that didn't stop us enjoying the day immensly!! Seeing some marvellous performances and elbowing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "WBIAGW"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":978,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2011\/01\/18\/random-memories-the-purple-fat-toy\/","url_meta":{"origin":547,"position":2},"title":"Random Memories: The Purple Fat Toy","date":"January 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometimes out of the blue while doing something completely unrelated a long forgotten\u00c2\u00a0 memory surfaces. Sometimes these are about something TBK said or did. I've written before about how I regret not documenting more his younger years so I've decided as they come to me I'm going to try and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Memory"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":221,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/08\/06\/after-the-rains\/","url_meta":{"origin":547,"position":3},"title":"After the rains","date":"August 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Droplet Originally uploaded by essitam Posted from Flickr: It has rained almost constantly now for a week, but in the brief breaks everything looks so fresh!","rel":"","context":"In "Photography"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":614,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2009\/06\/16\/educationeducationeducation\/","url_meta":{"origin":547,"position":4},"title":"Education….Education…Education….","date":"June 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going on Holiday in October Term time AND taking my 9 year old son with me. I take him out of school every year for a holiday and for other activity days, as was agreed with his school that I be allowed to do so in advance of enrolling\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Family"","img":{"alt_text":"Is it a bird....?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3595\/3626768456_07b88aef18.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":541,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2009\/05\/17\/simple-things\/","url_meta":{"origin":547,"position":5},"title":"Simple things","date":"May 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometimes it's the simple things make me happy. Taking a walk after it has rained, watching the cat sleep on the sofa, playing snap with the blonde kid or sitting quietly with James listening to some music. BUT then sometimes I think the things that make me happy mean I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Home"","img":{"alt_text":"Blue Water","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2287\/3540239134_eb313f5b34.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":611,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions\/611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}