The salt sea air always knocks me sideways when we visit the coast, hence my not posting for a couple of days. We’ve been visiting my parents – the first time I’ve had the opportunity to see them since before the first covid lockdowns. The journey up was fairly draining due to roadworks slowing our average travel speed, but safe enough as these things go.

Today then, the boy s and I went to Blackpool Zoo – in particular to see the otters there. The boy s is currently hyper-fixated on otters, so the news that the local zoo offered him the chance to see some in real life rather than just on YouTube. We left everyone else behind and made it a mini road-trip for the day.

The weather kept threatening showers, but held off, so we had a great time exploring the whole place. He grabbed a map and marked off every animal that we found – but his first sight of the otters I think just made his day. There was a massive grin and shocked expression at just how loud their chirps were. We did also find many other animals that provoked a similar response, but that and the promise of feeding time later was the highlight of the day. He was also blown away by the sealion display as we went into full tourist mode to fill the time.

All in all, a really good day out. I enjoyed rediscovering somewhere I last visited when the Charleesi was small, and boy s is determined to return once the wild cat area has finished being redeveloped.

Back on the road tomorrow…