Having been distracted by the life insurance incident, I absent mindedly forgot to report back on our trip to Edinburgh Zoo. Another eventful day to go down in history as badly planned and clumsily executed to say the least.
Unbelievably we were all up and dressed on time Monday morning and set off for the zoo about 0810am. Once underway it dawned on me that the camera was still lying on the desk in the lounge and was not in my bag where I had intended it to be. With no time to return home to collect it, I began a torrent of self directed verbal abuse, which ended with a decision to buy and use a disposable camera in combination with my mobile phone camera.
As we hit Edinburgh it became evident that the AA Route Map instructions we were following were wrong. Either that or we had severely mis-read them. A lengthy drive around Edinburgh developed, which I addressed by halting us at ASDA to ask for directions. Bad directions and my bad memory led to a further episode of denying being 'lost', before we drove past the zoo several times endeavouring to find the entrance to the car park.
Little did we know that this was the least of our problems. Now 1210pm we were paying for our parking ticket when we began to see smoke coming from the bonnet of the alpha. We pulled into a space and D lifted the hood. What came next can only be described as a torrent of shouting and cursing as D despaired at what he had done. Before leaving he had filled the oil tank, but he had not replaced the screw top. To say that the oil had spilled out all over the engine was an understatement. You could hardly see the engine for all the oil. Instructing Ali to remain in the car and shutting the doors to cut out any audible vocabulary, I provided D with all the tissues and wipes I could lay my hands on, and consulted the ever impressive and attentive AA for advice. A yellow angel arrived within the hour and spectacularly found the screw top in the tray under the engine. Maybe someone was watching over us after all.
Now then, for those of you who have not had the fortune or opportunity to visit Edinburgh Zoo, let me just inform you of a very important fact. The zoo is positioned and built on a very large hill! Please let me assure you I was not so naive to think that there would not be a considerable amount of walking to do on this excursion, but I had not factored in the hill. So on arrival my mind spun as to how I was going to encourage Ali to keep going for the remainder of the day. In hindsight a lightweight folding pushchair may have been a wise.
Well, we managed to see the majority of all the animals and Ali did very well, although she did report on a regular basis that she was 'tired of walking, and running... and pedaling' ??? We just tried to distract her and keep her going. Getting home very late that evening I was mortified to realise that Ali had got blisters on her feet from all the walking. I felt like a total failure as a parent and so incredibly guilty. She had tried to tell us and we had not listened. In her totally positive manner she never even complained about them again - this didn't make me feel any better though. There's certainly no instruction book to parenting - we seem to forever be learning the hard way!
We did enjoy the day but it was tiring for all. My advice to others;
1) Replace the lid on the oil tank once filled.
2) Get comprehensive directions and consult a road map
3) If taking little ones, add a pushchair to the baggage
4) Arrive in plenty of time to allow for rest breaks
5) Take a camera with a zoom feature otherwise your zebra in a field may as well be a cow in a field!
In other news, today is the day of our celebration of being together for 5 years. The cold I was worried about has turned out to be the smallest problem factoring into my plans. Being a woman has interfered with a vengeance leaving me totally depressed about the whole thing. I am trying to be positive and convince myself that it will still be lovely and romantic, and at least we will get a good nights sleep! It's not working though.
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