Remind me: Why do we bother?

What with one thing and another it was definately time to pull a sickie and spend some time at home yesterday. Auntie H dropped of Miss O so she could go into town and do something grown-up. I took Miss O to the "shopper market" as Bax calls it, to get supplies and then we came home, Bax and izzie woke up and we put together a marvellous picnic and went to the zoo.

All the way there Miss O and I sang "We're going to the zoo zoo zoo" and Bax would say quitely "Me too too too".

Got there, hauled everything out of G's truck. Two buggies (one a double). A bag. A picnic box thing called a Tiffin which i got from GAS for Christmas. Two drink bottles. A picnic rug. All three kids sat in a row on the grass verge, Bax ("You're in charge") coralling the girls into line.

Luckily kids are free at the zoo (Bax calls it the zoom) because it costs an absolute fortune for adults to get in so it all evens out in the end.

We were there on a fabulous day it turned out. it was very empty of people so the animals felt relaxed enough to come right up to the fence/glass/moat. We saw lions, elephants, hippos, giraffes, zebra, baboon - all very close. Bax seemed to enjoy it - especailly when just the hippo's nostrils appeared out of the water. Miss O liked the chickens. Izzie was quite captivated by the lions.

We had our picnic. The kids liked that bit the very best. The five of us found a round table and four chairs right by the lions which was pretty cool.

We went back round the way we'd come because we had decided that bax and Miss O could choose the direction we went if they walked rather than rode in the buggies. We ended up in the kiwis which I used to be really spooked by when I was a littlie but Bax liked so much he kept running in a yelling that he was home.

After only an hour and a bit we all hiked back to the car, got them to sit on the grass in a line again, piled everything back into the truck and went home.

By the time we got there, Bax was bawling, Miss O was screaming, G was a bout to jump out the window onto the motorway rather than stay with us, Izzie was looked very sleepy, and i was wondering to myself: Was this a good idea or should we just have stayed in our own garden and played with our own animals.

Auntie H came and got Mis O and told us all about apple trees. Later when the sun was going down and Izzie was asleep i took Bax out into the garden and told him to set about climbing our little apple tree just to see if he could. He looked at me as if I was mad , I told him there was a buck in it for him if he made it to the top (just kidding). He climbed happily up, picking appleas as he went, only broke one small branch and when he did get to the top he crawled out onto the branch hanging down just like a little to sawyer, or like the lioness had at the zoom. He looked so happy and peaceful.

Another thing: Huge love and majesty to our movie star Phoebe.