Lions and Tigers and Warm Woollen Mittens.

It has been an awful long while since I wrote anything for you, for a variety of reasons which I mostly forget; probably because they were along the lines of ‘Don’t really feel like it at the moment – too busy – do it later’.  That and there is a problem with the internet at our house which may-or-may-not simply be something to do with us not paying the bill. And we have been busy. Honest. I’m about to write all about just so you can see.

Well, I’m about to write about one bit. If I wrote about all of it you might not finish before tomorrow. You know what I’m like; I start writing something that took five minutes in reality and should consume no more than a paragraph, and somewhere along the line it turns into a page or three and in reading devourers a few hours. So. Baby steps.

This is what I started writing on December 14^th, and never quite finished until now.

You’re all probably thinking of turkeys and roasts and eating Christmas cookies/cakes/it-contains-sugar-things people have made, pulling out the woolly hats and gloves, worrying about frost and hoping for snow. I’m having a ridiculously sweet coco ron (Hot coco) in a small 20p cup, deciding I want sticky rice and chicken with as much sweet chilli sauce as I can handle instead of a Subway and lamenting anytime the weather dips below 20˚.

We went to the zoo on Monday, with a great deal of thought from everyone being bent towards the ‘Cold Dome’. I had taken part in some rather poor planning that morning, and instead of wearing long trousers had put on a skirt. Still, that wasn’t going to stop me. ‘It’s almost Christmas!’ we bemoaned, ‘We should be cold! There should be ice!’ And so somewhere between the lion with the coughing-roar and the amazingly hairy baby elephant we bought tickets, donned duffle coats and rubber boots and ventured into the blizzard!

Don’t look at me like that. It was almost a blizzard. For those first ten seconds we were in the door. A baby blizzard.

Ok, so there was a snow maker. We ventured into the snow makers general vicinity, and then someone turned it off. Don’t be smug.

Everything was decorated as if we were in some Chinese winter wonderland, with red and gold and dragons and an amusing little snowman. On its own that might not have been much to shout about, but there was also snowtubing! Little black rubber rings with handles so you could clutch at something in terror as the assistants chucked you in a flying spin down the curved hill, sending you hurtling towards walls and wrenching over excited screams from more than one person. It felt slightly like those tea-cup rides at fairs, but colder and less vomit-inducing.

My hands went numb, my feet went numb, and my ears had that slightly painful feeling that’s saying ‘Go put on a hat please, or stop faffing around in the cold’. I realised I was almost as pale as the surrounding snow; probably not from frostbite. For somewhere so hot I have not even gained the slightest tan. I was shivering, which I don’t think I’ve done since I left England, and continuing to berate myself for my abysmal choice of clothing. Skirts do not good snow-wear make.

Still, that trip made us all feel a bit like we were back home.

If you ignore the exotic animals.