Watching for Penguins

Back in August when we went camping in Southwold Miss E made firm friends with Miss R. Within minutes of our arrival at the campsite!!
They've written to each other a couple of times which is very sweet (and very old school!!!) and I made friends with her lovely mum, Mrs C, on Facebook (less old school!!)
Miss E talks about Miss R all the time and was giddy a few weeks ago when Mrs C said that Miss R wanted to get together with her as a birthday treat. 
Today was the day. Bright and early we headed to Woburn Safari Park, getting there just as it opened at 10am.
Funnily enough as we stopped at the ticket booth Miss E noticed that Miss R's car was right behind us and there was lots of very excited waving!!
Wow, it's like a whole new world getting somewhere early!!! We headed into the cafe (what day trip doesn't start with a cup of tea?!!) and had it to ourselves. It was weird!!!
The kids took themselves off to another table - although Miss R's older brother, Mr R, had soon had enough and joined the grown ups!!
The rest of the morning was a whirl of parrots, tortoises, lemurs, penguins, goats, Bush dogs, otters, meerkats and porcupines. 
Lunch was delicious followed by a bit of swan pedaloing! Well Mr K and Mr G took the the kids on the swan pedaloes, Mrs C and I just sat on the sidelines laughing!!
Then we had ice cream and more teas and coffees before heading out to the driving safari. Miss R came in our car with us - she and the Little Misses thought it was very funny to all bundle into the boot together and had a great time taking thousands of pictures and videos.
We saw giraffes running around, zebras crossing (which Mummy and Daddy found particularly hilarious and pointed it out many, many times, but which no-one under the age of nine found vaguely funny!!), we saw a rhino having a showdown with a moose thing (reindeer??) rattling its antlers against its enclosure and winding it up!! We saw tigers prowling with bears, lions relaxing in the sun and had a fabulous time in the monkey enclosure. One ended up jumping on our bonnet and up onto the roof which, of course, caused much excitement in the boot!
Once we got back to the zoo bit we went to see wallabies, ostriches and sealions and then had a mad half hour in the soft play bit. As usual my two were completely inappropriately dressed so Miss L had to don Mr K's fleece and Miss E had to put on Mr G's jacket and my socks!! Then they were suitably attired to go down the slides. If a little odd looking!
Then suddenly it was 5.30pm and time to go!!
Exhausted but happy! What a wonderful day!
I had been a bit worried about meeting people we hardly know and spending the day with them - what if the girls didn't get on away from a campsite? What if us grown ups had nothing to say to each other? But I needn't have worried!! It was a brilliant day from beginning to end!!