Zoo Day.

Cloudy and moderately cool today. Working at the zoo I was plagued by midge bites. I've often been bitten by mozzies, horse flies and yes cat fleas but I can't remember midges being a problem before. Not up in the Exmoor hills but the zoo is built on an old marsh by a river. For those not in the know midges are invisible but deliver a bite like a fine needle being stuck into the skin.They bothered me at the time but although most bites bother me for weeks even with antihistamine cream I'm not feeling anything at all now. 

Today I cleared the whole of the area behind the barrier from weeds. Luckily my legs are just long enough for me to step over the barrier and I didn't need to ask anyone to unlock a gate. While I was in there a mum came to ask if I could rescue her toddler's soft toy, a Minnie Mouse, which had fallen in the goat enclsure. This I was able to reach with my long handled trowel before any of the goats decided to eat it. It was easy to pull up most of the weeds as they were growing in a layer of woodchips over old carpet. However it will be an ongoing job as most of the weeds had gone to seed and quite a few had grown down through the carpet. Before I did this area I'd weeded a narrow strip of gravel just out of sight on the left of the photo. This ran along the outside of a pen with two ferrets in. Every now and again one would come out and put her nose to the wire to check what I was doing. 

Sadly one of the peachicks died in the night. The reason isn't known but apparently it felt very light compared to the other peachicks. Let's hope that it wasn't something contagious.

For the last few weeks work had been going on to extend the wolf-dog run into what was the wallabies' pen as they've had to be taken away from public view. Before I went home I was asked to weed the entry into one of the adjoining pens. This is like a two door airlock that all the pens have to prevent any escapes and didn't take long to do. In the above photo the male wolf-dog is very interested in a visitor's young golden retriever that was excited and barking a lot. Unlike most zoos here visitors can bring their dogs in with them. They don't have any contact with the animals and it makes for a friendlier atmosphere plus dogs aren't being left to overheat in cars.

Once I was home from the zoo there was time for a shower before I went with Peter to town. The next step for his AF treatment is to see a consultant and yesterday he had a phonecall asking would he be able to come for an echocardiogram today as they'd just had a cancellation. That was a yes and we did the same as before, we drove to the hospital, he got out and I then drove down to Lidl's car park. I did the shopping and then visited a health food shop that was full of lovely produce and smells. The kind of place where goods are displayed in old wooden boxes and lots of things are in bulk containers that you help yourself to. But it was all very expensive and they were out of the oat bran I was looking for. We've had to get used to gaps on the shelves in the supermarkets as there is currently a national shortage of lorry drivers due to Brexit. So many of our lorry drivers as well as fruit and vegetable workers came from Europe. Peter's echocardiogram went smoothly and apparently the AF is nothing to be concerned about. He'll find out more when he sees the consultant.