Day 20 - Otters

Today we spent the morning seeing some Owls and otters at the owl and otter sanctuary. I really liked the otters as they were really cute and funny to watch as they ran round their enclosures and swam in the water, they also made funny squeeking noises which I was tempted to try and copy! We also saw some owls in their enclosures but I was not so interested in them at first as they didn't do much and they were hard to spot as they were mostly hiding high up at the back. However, later on in the morning we spotted a lady walking round holding a barn owl - I was fascinated by it, it was so beautiful and kept looking round and round at everybody. I was not allowed to touch it, but the lady did bring it a bit lower and closer to me so I could have a good look. On the way out of the 'animal trail' on our way to the cafe for lunch we also saw some deer on the sides of the grass. We didn't get too close to them, but I was still amazed at how close they did let us get - they were beautiful and one of them further back had really big antlers which were really impressive! In the cafe we saw a video of the giant otters and their new cubs - the section with the giant otters in was closed to the public as they don't like having humans around much when they have young, so it was really nice to be able to see the video/camera link.

In the afternoon I spent some time in the Pavilion gardens with Grandma and Grandad while Mummy and Daddy went to hear their friend Ian Belsey sing a concert. (I would have loved to have gone too, but I was in quite a hyper mood and so would have been very restless.) They said that the concert was really good and fun, (even if Ian didn't have any friends! ha ha! ;) ) and Mummy especially liked the fact that he did the 'Silly little Saussages' song that we liked last year - TWICE! :D They also liked a funny song that he did about a donkey and the Flanders and Swann transport songs.

Tonights show was Pirates by 'New Lyric, Belfast', which Daddy went to see with Grandma and Grandad while I stayed at the cottage with Mummy. Daddy thought it rather pretentious to play the National Anthem before the show, even though (as far as he could see) the Queen wasn't present in the audience. The clattering of seats as people sat back down nearly drowned out the start of the overture, but that paled into insignificance compared with the antics on stage which managed at times to make it completely inaudible. Apart from this, the show was lively and enthusiastically done, though it had a few too many interjections inserted into it, and didn't quite hang together as well as it initially appeared it was going to. Still worth having seen though, overall.