Day At The Zoo.

Hello everyone,

I know I haven't posted in a while as I just sort of lost touch with what I was writing and didn't want to just put up content for the sake of posting something mediocre but lately life has been so hectic, I'll write a little post all about that soon just as a little catch up, so I haven't been able to concentrate or put all my energy into what I'm writing and if I'm going to put something online I want it to be right. So here I am with a post that I love the topic of because it was such a lovely day and it will be a memory that I cherish for the rest of time.

Growing up I was always going to my local happy place, Colchester Zoo, and I've seen the zoo grow, new animals come in and sadly the beloved creatures go but I still love the place as much as I first did stepping into the home for amazing animals. Now I'm fully aware that everyone has different opinons on zoos and the well-being of the animals that habitat in them and my opinon has positives and negatives on both sides but this isn't a post to have that debate right now..maybe one day I'll write my views down but for this post it's just a pleasant memory. 

Last Sunday, 6th March, I arranged for my boyfriend to come round after he had finished work which wasn't until about 8:30/9pm but as this was Mother's Day everything came together nicely. Just as he text me saying he was leaving for drive to mine he mentioned he had the next day off, which amazed us both as our schedules never sync up too well, so straight away I sent replied with a mini freak out text telling him to bring a change of clothes and everything round as we had been planning a trip to the zoo for a few weeks, now we could finally go, and I felt like a child again filling up with excitment that I was finally going back to my happy place and taking the person I adore with me. The last time I had gone to this zoo was for my 20th birthday, which was in October, so I hadn't been away for that long but I used to own a membership card and would be up there every couple of weeks. That night I went to sleep fairly early as we planned to be out the house by 10 and I don't like rushing to get ready.

My alarm went off at 8am and I peeked out of the curtains to check the weather, much to delight the sun was beaming so I hopped out of bed super quick as I knew this would be a good day. My boyfriend joined me downstairs whilst I was finishing getting ready and just watched tv and spoke to my parents, I love that my parents both think he's a decent guy as my family is very close and my dad has a great judge of character so if his gut feeling is bad about someone then I tend to give them a chance and then decide I can't be with them if my family thinks badly of them, anyway I finished getting ready and we left. We decided to stop in McDonalds on the way out to feed ourselves, the breakfast bagel is my go-to order, then we sat in the car listening to the radio and just talking about random things while we ate. 

Finally we got to the zoo and I literally squeeled of excitement when we parked up, even though the sun had gone in and the cold starting to show itself but that didn't phase me at all. I went and asked for 2 adult tickets and then paid for our entry, he's done so much for me that I decided this would be a little treat day for him plus we both work hard for our money so why shouldn't we both treat eachother. Once we were in and walked around a few of the enclosures we decided we were both freezing so we spent a lot of the time huddled together for warmth, not that I'm complaining about that, we got to the sea-lions and they just started their little 'show', not this wasn't like some awful show for peoples enjoyment it was the animals doing their daily checks and feed with the keepers whilst they spoke about them and and the training they do at the zoo to make humans able to check them closely without having to use any medicine to knock them out. After watching that we went to get some hot chocolates to try and warm up and then started again around the park, my favourites to watch are always the chimps but their new enclosure was shut for maintenance so the public weren't able to go and see them but still I had an amazing time watching the other animals the zoo had to offer. When we got to the meerkats a few looked like they were fighting, but much to the mother with a small child next to us, they were infact mating. We laughed and joked with the parent of the child who was asking what they were doing, which he got a reply of 'a special cuddle'..good cover up to the mum! 

Thankfully there weren't many people there so we didn't have to try and muscle our way through the crowds, we could go at a leisurely place and could even have a few cuddles to warm up without everyone cringing, trust me I cringe so much when I see the slightest PSA! On our way out we played around in the gift shop, considering I'm 20 and he's 24 next month we probably should have gone to the grown up gift shop but instead we played around with a jelly snake thing for a good 10 minuets. 

After walking around we were both pretty hungry so we decided to stop off at Harvester on the way home, I ordered my absolute favourite of battered halloumi and fries, and with their new drinks machine we used our refills as a good opportunity to try the strangest drink combinations..a winner was on the Pepsi options, vanilla, cherry and strawberry all mixed together. It was delicious. 

This date day was pretty much perfect.