There's something inside you, its hard to explain

Christmas in our family is usually a fairly quiet one. We spend Christmas morning running around catching up with all of our extended family before we all separate off to our own houses for Christmas dinner; when I'm left with just my Mum and Dad for the rest of the day. I love our little family Christmas day- we play a lot of scrabble, eat far too much food and see who's first to fall asleep in front of the telly, but as soon as Christmas Day is out of the way we need a bit of something to escape the house (and keep us away from the Quality Street for a few hours). 

And so, yesterday we ended up at Chester Zoo. Its somewhere I go quite often when I'm at home as its only a few miles away, and I could never ever get bored of it. This time, the tiger cubs were the main attraction- we watched the two of them fighting over a bone and tricking each other into letting go of it... its great to see that family arguments come as standard at Christmas across the whole of the animal kingdom!

Believe it or not, this was one of the cubs... slightly bigger than your average kitten!

We had a great little time, and it was nice to get out of the house and have a bit of a wander about to clear the cobwebs before returning to our scrabble board and tins of chocolate in the evening. Tis the season and all that!

Nightcall- London Grammar

You're living a lie, baby you're flying too high

Today I'm going to share a strange concept with you. I have a friend who, when asked if she'd like to join in on a day trip to Chester Zoo, uttered the words "I really don't like the zoo, I just don't like animals and don't see the point". 

Despite a huge amount of persuasion on our parts, she still refused. Luckily, she does enjoy days out with lots of shopping and food (see exhibit A as evidence of our most recent escapade last week) so I can still grant her permission to remain friends with me, plus she's a lovely person and one of my oldest friends too so I suppose I'll have to let her off for her lack of zoological enthusiasm. 

But seriously... take a look at how flipping beautiful these animals are and then try to explain how somebody couldn't enjoy a day in the sunshine watching chimpanzees causing more drama than an episode of Coronation Street and spying on the teeny-tiniest baby elephants.

(thought I'd throw in a token mug shot to demonstrate what a jolly old time I had. Now on to the better looking animals...)

See... Zoos are AWESOME. 

(As is the zoom lens I borrowed from my Dad for the day.)

All the time- The Strokes