Ahhh!

Not the best of mornings today, but we decided to visit Edinburgh Zoo. We joked that we were taking our daughter to the zoo for her birthday, though it's been many years since she was a child!

The meercats are a wonderful bunch of animals and they kept us in stitches for a long time - the one in my extra picture seems to be saying 'Modesty means everything to a meercat'!

We queued up to see the pandas of course, and were rewarded with 
the sight of Daddy panda hanging off a frame sleeping off his latest meal of bamboo. I couldn't help feeling that the best place for pandas is at home in an enlightened China.

I enjoyed watching the penguins swimming underwater too, but it was this sleepy little koala that made it to Blipsville today!

One thing bothered me. Although I know that the zoo has a good and increasing role to play in wildlife conservation, going round today much as a 'tourist' and exiting through the shop with its huge selection of merchandise, I left with no message of the important, even the only role of a zoo today, that of conservation. If I'd looked for it then I'm sure I would have found it, but for families with kids I felt that it was just an entertainment. Probably my fault, but I was very disappointed.