Giant Tortoise Rescue. (sort of)

Sunset last night. 

Although the forecast was for more very hot weather today here the high clouds have kept it a bit cooler. Still warm but not a scorcher.

The little yacht? stayed moored overnight at the bottom of the garden and once it got dark it was lovely to see the mast light shining out.

There was no reason not to cycle to the zoo so that's what I did. It's still hard going a lot of the time and although on the homeward journey I made it around the corner I then jumped off and pushed the bike up the short slope.

I had intended to only spend a couple of hours at the zoo but when I made it as far as the large play area I was greeted by flowering weeds some of which were almost 2ft high. Over the summer the zoo will be busy on Wednesdays as they will be the days they can show the exotic animals. Mainly reptiles and insects but also the wallabies, emus and the other animals in the far fields. There were still plenty of families visiting today. Two small children 'helped' me with my weeding and later a small child chattered to me calling me Mr Farmer. Well I was wearing a camo sunhat and wellies. I also had a couple of minor incidents to deal with, first I was informed that one of the goats had grabbed the paper cup that holds the veg people can feed the animals with, and the cup was now in the goat enclosure. I just went and found a stick to fish out the now empty cup. The second incident was more interesting. A visitor was concerned that one of the giant tortoises was choking on some food stuck in its mouth. I went into the tortoise enclosure and sure enough there was large cabbage or lettuce stump jammed in the tortoise's mouth. I'm pretty sure that tortoises have a strong bite and didn't want to put my finger in so I found a stone, prised out the slobber covered stump and threw it out of harm's way. 

Off now to the last Pilates class for the summer. Rachel has promised us 15 minutes of relaxation at the end so I should be floating home after that.