Drama, Guiness, shoes and zoos

We have had a very busy week!! Started with little M's drama performance as a mouse in her drama group. Very cute (pity the camera is still defunct, hope to get another soon). Then on Thursday we went to see The HMS Pinafore by the local G&S society. We had a good time, M said that the best bit was when the sailor and the girl got married at the end. The next morning big M had a mega day - caught the 6.30am flight to Dublin (which means a 4.45am start from home) and had a day at Trinity College. Unfortunately there was no time to look around so I invited myself back next year. (fortunately they seemed happy with that). We had some beers after the conference day in a nice pub, then I caught the 9.45pm flight back to Stansted, arrived home around midnight and decided that really was too long a day!!! On Saturday went to Colchester to buy shoes for the kids (sounds absurd but there is a great kids shoe shop there which does a good job fitting little M's difficult feet). So they are kitted out with boots for winter now. Wish I had boots that nice!! To do the Colchester trip we had hired a car for the weekend, so Sunday we went to Homerton Zoo, which was quite fun. They had all sorts of animals we had never seen before - including chipmunks, jaguarindi, pudu, lots of types of tamarind and a real white tiger. The tiger was HUGE, really much bigger than any other we have seen. It is primarily a breeding zoo for rare and endangered animals so had all sorts of interesting animals (of course with obligatory kookaburras and wallabies too). Kids had a great time, and a clear winters day is a good time to go to zoos - no people and the animals are out basking in what passes for the sunshine. So a good time was had by all. Off to Tilburg tomorrow morning, back Tuesday!