A tremendous thing

Ferdy and Gil are really good friends. I'm not sure how long it will stay like this but currently, although they do argue, they seem simply to like each other and enjoy one another's company. They don't compete much, perhaps because Ferdy isn't very competitive (he is actually happy when Gil wins a race), perhaps because they have different skills. It also helps that they both love Star Wars.

Both boys really like Fridays because they have an extra day together; Gil has started to join in more with the work that we do and I'm sure his enthusiasm for it is rubbing off on Ferdy.

Ferdy doing some maths and Gil writing Meerkat and Lemur

Ferdy's learning about animals and their habitats at school at the moment so after some maths (Ferdy) and practising writing meerkat and lemur (Gil), we studied some other animals we were going to be meeting today at Peak Wildlife Park.

Gil suggested that we listen to the rest of Charlotte's Web on the way as it's also about animals, I hesitantly agreed. Hesitantly, because I needed clear vision for the drive and it's nearly at the bit which makes me need to brush something out of my eye... (spoiler alert: when Charlotte is left to die).

tl clockwise: No warty pigs; watching the Humbolt penguins; stroking his new wallaby friend;
reading about wild animals; being followed by pygmy goats; reading about the maneless zebra

The advantage of torrential rain is that we get places to ourselves, we are able to chat to the keepers and we really get to know and interact with the animals. The disadvantage is that quite a few animals don't want to be outside. We didn't see the warty pigs or the mainless zebras, and the lemurs only reluctantly sidled out of their hut for a bit of food (carrots). But the wallabies seemed quite content in the rain and even let Ferdy stroke them; we learnt that they like eating grass, leaves and shoelaces. And the pygmy goats in the African Village were impervious to the muddy puddles and happy to be herded by and follow around a cheeky little six year old.

We even got our own private talk from one of the keepers about the meerkats and what they eat (grubs, crickets, mice and carrots), where they live and why they are sandy coloured. Ferdy then gave the zookeeper a talk about when Andy of Andy's Safari Adventures met meerkats and what a meerkat alarm call sounds like, and Gil gave a little talk about his own camouflage trousers and how he wears them in the forest but not in the grass because they don't work there. I was a little tired at this point so opted not to give a talk.

All the information we'd gathered about where our new animal friends originate from was easily recorded on worksheets, diligently prepared by Mum, in the cafe later. And I couldn't argue with Ferdy when he wrote 'child' in the space for an animal found in the UK.

As well as being about animals, today was about making animal friends, and human friends, and being friends, and crying about book friends, and learning about friendship which, as Charlotte says, is a tremendous thing.