Afternoon everyone! It’s been such a chilly week here so we’ve had the heating on most evenings. Brr! I’m cosied up on the sofa in pjs under a blanket and watching the rugby highlights with the hubby. What every Sunday should be like…
We’ve had some friends up from London this weekend so we went to Cadbury World and then had an evening in with fireworks and mulled cider. After filling up on lots of free chocolate during the day, a warm mug of mulled cider did the trick! I’ll get around to writing up the recipe – it went down a treat! (Maybe because it was so boozy!)
I’m catching up on things I need to write up and on that list is our trip to Longleat Safari Park last month. We’d planned this months ago to have a long weekend but I hadn’t imagined work was going to be so manic. September is always busy in the auditing world so was a very busy month! I hadn’t imagined October would be busy but all the less urgent filing deadlines got pushed back to October so a month which I’d hoped to be nice and chilled was busy. The Friday before our long weekend off for Longleat was busy and I ended up having to work on Saturday and Sunday. The hubby did the Birmingham Half Marathon on the Sunday and it was chucking it down all morning! We got to the centre and met up with some others from his work. They were all running for Edward’s Trust and raised over £2k which was such a great effort! After they’d all set off I made my way to Starbucks and settled down to do some final bits of work before meeting up a couple hours later near the finish line to cheer them on.
The hubby did a great time and we celebrated by grabbing some burritos and margaritas before jumping on the road to Warminster.
We’d booked into a Travelodge which only cost us £30 for the night. This meant we could get to Longleat for as soon as it opened. We started the day with a yummy caramel hot choc and sausage sandwich at Starbs before making our way to Longleat.
When we last went to Longleat about 5 years ago we did the Safari drive through first but this time the weather was still awful and the rain wasn’t stopping so we decided to do the house and everything else first in the hope it would stop raining in the afternoon and we would actually see some animals on the Safari.
Going to Longleat on a week day meant that it was nice and empty. I definitely prefer being able to visit places if possible during the week as it makes it much less busy/ stressful.
We started off going to Penguin Island. We love penguins! I mean look at these guys…
A lovely little addition to their habitat is lots of lavender. When we watched Animal Park: Summer Special it mentioned that lavender is a natural mosquito repellent. A couple years ago the Penguin colony was devastated by Avian Malaria so they now do what they can to stop this from happening again.
Next on the list was seeing the stingrays. They’ve right next to the penguins. Always like watching these guys.
We then went to feed the Lorikeets. By that I mean the hubby fed them and I watched! After he grabbed some nectar we went in and within a couple seconds they were all over him. It was fun to watch.
A must do at Longleat is going on the Jungle Cruise. Because it was a Monday and I guess raining, there were only 6 of us on the boat! The Sea Lions are constantly swimming around the boat and popping their heads out in the hope of fish and we even got to see the Hippos. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a wuss but I got a pot of fish to feed the Sea Lions.
The meerkats are always lovely to see. We couldn’t believe that they were still out in the rain! There was one little meerkat on the outlook that looked freezing!
Last time we were at Longleat I got a litttttle bit freaked out by the bats 🙈 When we went into the Bat Cave this time they were busy eating and were pretty docile. Nothing to worry about!
We then spent time in the House. You can’t take photos in the house so nothing to show unfortunately but its worth a walk around. Its very grand and the rooms and ceilings are so impressive!
Our hope of the rain stopping didn’t happen so we just got in the car and made our way to the Safari drive through. It’s best shown in pictures so here goes…
Overall, even though it rained we had a great time! It was a proper day off work and I love a long weekend! We had a proper chill and enjoyed seeing all the animals. When it gets a bit warmer, we’re planning on going up to Chester Zoo. We do like watching The Secret Life of the Zoo on Channel Four (usually when we’re doing some work as something in the background) which is based on Chester Zoo. We’ll probably make a long weekend of it and have a look around Chester as well.
Anyone else a big fan of the zoo?
What’s your favourite animal? Mine is either penguins or giraffes 🐧
Until next time,
Cathers x
