we scratch our arses
A trip to Colchester zoo for Heidi's first birthday gave her her first experience of putting her fingers in a goat's nose. Everyone brought children; even Mat and Amanda had borrowed a couple for the occasion. Even I travelled up in the back seat with Phil and Vicki's 'monkey', as Vicki's text, ominously, described him. In the event there was very little monkey business, and Christopher was either asleep, or looking at me warily. Real monkeys proved to be more alarming. One of Mat and Amanda's charges, Ellie, was terrified by an orang utan. She wasn't wrong. It was this huge great mass of matted fur which I wasn't even convinced was a living thing until it moved, and then it was like that moment in Audition where the sack shifts. It skulked off into the shadows, all hair, like a spectre from another Japanese horror film: most of them.
The chimps were more agreeable. An elderly one scratched its arse then sniffed its fingers, clearly playing the crowd, grossing them out. This is too easy, its expression seemed to say. Informative phrases adorned the windows of all the enclosures. They could have sold them in the shop as bumper stickers: an alternative to merely telling people that you've been to Colchester Zoo. We are spider monkeys; I come from Russia; We are similiar to dogs. Nearly everything worked.
My special bond with children continued to bear fruit. Ellie (two) happily pointed to her brother Bobby, and called his name, and did the same with Mat, but when people pointed at me and encouraged her to say my name, she merely said: 'Oh'. As though that would be socially awkward.
Our attempts to find ourselves a new enclosure have not been successful. We looked at a house on the notorious East Ham estate, home of machete attacks, dispersal orders... and Maud (hi, Maud!). It was the usual case of the third bedroom being too small, but on this occasion there was a converted loft. 'The only thing is', said the letting agent, 'it doesn't have a door.'
I just about restrained myself from asking: 'How do you get in?'
In the event it was suitable only for children and dwarves; even I would have suffered from chronic head injuries, living in it. The real surprise, though, was that the East Ham estate seemed really peaceful. You could have heard the thunk of a machete into flesh from miles away.
The chimps were more agreeable. An elderly one scratched its arse then sniffed its fingers, clearly playing the crowd, grossing them out. This is too easy, its expression seemed to say. Informative phrases adorned the windows of all the enclosures. They could have sold them in the shop as bumper stickers: an alternative to merely telling people that you've been to Colchester Zoo. We are spider monkeys; I come from Russia; We are similiar to dogs. Nearly everything worked.
My special bond with children continued to bear fruit. Ellie (two) happily pointed to her brother Bobby, and called his name, and did the same with Mat, but when people pointed at me and encouraged her to say my name, she merely said: 'Oh'. As though that would be socially awkward.
Our attempts to find ourselves a new enclosure have not been successful. We looked at a house on the notorious East Ham estate, home of machete attacks, dispersal orders... and Maud (hi, Maud!). It was the usual case of the third bedroom being too small, but on this occasion there was a converted loft. 'The only thing is', said the letting agent, 'it doesn't have a door.'
I just about restrained myself from asking: 'How do you get in?'
In the event it was suitable only for children and dwarves; even I would have suffered from chronic head injuries, living in it. The real surprise, though, was that the East Ham estate seemed really peaceful. You could have heard the thunk of a machete into flesh from miles away.
posted by martin at 12:55 PM
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