I have just been out for lunch. My sister Ruth is visiting from Canada, Husband suggested I should break from work and have a pub lunch with them. To be honest, it’s too hot to achieve much decent work (lots of slow blinks as I read scholarly articles) so off we went. We arrived as the pub was opening, and it was initially lovely and peaceful. But then two women entered and chose a table near to where we were sitting. You might think I am going to moan about the volume of their voices, or that one spoke on the phone at the table (most people are incapable of speaking at normal volume on the phone). But no, they started to play music on their phone. Not quietly, full volume music. Not even good music. I realised they were watching a video of a concert. They started to sing along (I nearly choked on my french fries!) Then, to help things no end, Husband also started to sing along! I thought (hoped) this might encourage them to reduce the volume. No such luck. The pub started to play background music of its own, so now we were surrounded by screeching singing on one side, and hits from the 90s on the other. It was not peaceful. I thought about saying something, or taking a photo (people get very huffy if random strangers take their photo) but I did nothing. No point in making an enemy over a bit of loud screeching.

I did however take photos at Jersey zoo. We visited towards the end of our holiday, and it is the best zoo in the world. Lots of animal-friendly cages, not so large you want to die before the end, some spectacularly pretty landscaping. The zoo was originally set up by Gerald Durrell, who looked a little like Russel Crowe of Gladiator fame in later life, but he’s better known for his books–which I read many years ago. It really is a lovely zoo. Somewhat spoiled by people behaving badly.

The badly-behaved people were in the butterfly house. This was an amazing area–you walked through doors and plastic screens and entered a world of huge blue butterflies. (There were other colours, but the blue ones were the best.) There was a window into the hatching area, where recently emerged butterflies were hanging to dry their wings. There were feeding stations of nectar and fruit, and you wandered amongst the plants enjoying the wonder of it all. Except for the people–a family–who were encouraging their children to hold the butterflies. I mean, who does that? Who doesn’t understand the fragility of a butterfly, that children holding them is never going to end well for delicate wings? I was too annoyed to trust myself to say something appropriate, so I left.

Unfortunately for you, I did not inherit my sister’s patience for photography, and she wasn’t with us. Therefore my photos are mostly more like ‘Where’s Wally?’ pictures (other than the ones ‘stolen’ from the walls of the bird house). I will leave you to spend happy hours trying to find the animals in my photos, but really you should go to Jersey, even if just to visit the zoo.

Hope you avoid all badly-behaved people today. Thanks for reading.
Take care,
Love, Anne x