The Zoo
We drove to Exmoor Zoo listening again to Judy Speirs on Â鶹Éç Radio Devon and a quiz involving two female listeners from different villages. Each were being tested on how much they knew about their own village and I take my hat off to whoever compiles these questions. Would you, for instance, know when the mobile library stops on the main street? How about the name of the new Vicar? Or who edits the community newsletter?
Well these contestants knew just about every answer and at one point the quiz itself dissolved into a discussion about community issues. Finally it was a mobile library question that caught out one of them but she sounded far too well brought-up to be disappointed. It's how you play the game and all that, even though the loser was branded a "village idiot".
We got to the zoo through a series of single track roads. Now I know many people disapprove of zoos. My main problems with them is that I've spent too many hours peering into empty cages and vacant enclosures not realising that the creature that's supposed to be inside is either hibernating, dead or has been rushed into surgery because it's swallowed a child's lunch-box. I always think I spot something camouflaged in the undergrowth until someone tells me I've been staring at an old bucket.
was a delight. You actually got the chance to enter the enclosres and feed some of the animals. Ok, not the cheetahs or anything, but I did let a Wallaby nibble seed-clusters out of the palm of my hand and then I poked some leaves into the grateful jaws of a guinea pig. Eat your heart out David Attenborough!.
Then we jouneyed on to Lynton which is a beautiful little village perched on the top of a cliff with a funicular railway bringing tourists up from the shore. If you're looking for a place to have the traditional Devon Cream Tea, then Lynton is the place. It has so many cosy little tea rooms that you could actually stage a Cream Tea record-breaking event and still have somewhere different to go for supper.
I suggested this to Mrs Z but she was having none of it. I may have to make do with seed-clusters.
