Zoo Day.

Mild, grey and dry today. There was even a little sun in the morning.

It was very quiet at the zoo. I expect there may be children turning up at the weekend or next week to visit Santa's Grotto before the big day. Due to the rampant Omicron variant it was announced yesterday that primary schools (4-10 yrs) in Wales will close this Friday. I expect that the children will only lose a few days from next week but I remember that as such a fun time with the children with Christmas activities and a general relaxation from the relentless grind of testing and assessment that goes on these days.

I can't get a decent photo of the Cayuga ducks through the wire which is a shame as they are such an amazing green and black colour.

Today's work was hard on my back because I decided to remove the brambles from one of the perimeter spaces. I could just have cut down the above ground growth and from the size of the roots and stumps that is what happened before but that's not the way I garden. Instead I dug and pulled and yanked out the substantial roots. I got over half the brambles out this week and should finish in my next session. On the way to dispose of  my muck bucket of roots and leaves I stopped to talk to the pygmy goats, as you do, and discovered they are quite partial to bramble leaves. Apparently they won't eat any growing in their enclosure but I guess things taste better when given over the fence. Not to mention a complete lack of visitors bearing portions of vegetables for the goats and rabbits. On these grey and gloomy days everyone gets on with their jobs and there's no sitting round the tables in the courtyard chatting over cups of coffee. I did however have a very nice chat with two lads, 18 year olds that also volunteer. They had such a good attitude to life and our conversation ranged from politics and religion to nutrition and exercise.

While I was standing up on the playhouse I saw the small local train that connects us with town in one direction and out to England in the other. Such a shame that train fares are so expensive being many times more than the fuel cost of driving in a car. Not much of an incentive to reduce car use. Prince Charles turned up in Aber a few days ago and caring for the environment as he does (yup, I'm being ironic) he arrived in a helicopter.

This afternoon's Christmas job was to dip the truffle centres in chocolate. All I'm going to say is that it's not worth trying to temper chocolate at home. Not even if you have a digital food thermometer to get the temperatures exactly right. Maybe using Lidl's chocolate, which is very good didn't help. I expect you need to use more expensive chocolate to get a proper shine. There was a bit of a shine to the chocolate but not enough to justify the effort or leaving the kitchen almost looking as if a chocolate fountain had exploded. That might be an exaggeration but there was an awful lot of washing up to do. I tried one truffle and the coating did have more of a snap to it but next year I'll simply coat the centres and throw sprinkles and glitter over them. Much easier. I used the remains of the melted chocolate to put a blob on each of the cranberry biscuits. Topped with a single cranberry and some red glitter they still look very rustic but Peter tells me the one he taste tested was delicious. The final dregs of chocolate were turned into discs topped with chocolate and sugar sprinkles.