DIY--Soapy Stuff

I do a lot of DIY.

That's Do It Yourself, in case you don't know.

Not building stuff. Although I am a dab hand with the power saw.

No, the DIY I do is making natural, cruelty free, animal free personal care products.

I have been meaning to blog about this for ages. I have been making my own tooth powder and deodorant for a year or so. I have had friends over to the flat to make their own tooth powder and deodorant.

But I have become more and more sensitive to chemicals over the years. Everything (even the natural products) seem to smell like a French whorehouse. No offence to French people or prostitutes.

And when you want to buy the natural (albeit smelly) cruelty free personal products, you have to buy them from a Health Food Shop and they cost an absolute FORTUNE.

You've got to sell a kidney just to buy a bottle of body wash.

So this year, for 2018, I have vowed to replace as many of our products with homemade ones as I can.

I was planning to blog about the deodorant and tooth powder, but I have found a soap that has been a game changer for me and set me off on making my own face wash and body wash, so I am beginning here.

For years, I heard about how amazing Castile soap is. It;s natural, animal free and super gentle. The most famous brand is Dr Bronner's but it costs £13.99 for 946 ml from Amazon. I cannot afford that even if it is great.

But then I found this at Wilko.

Wilko's website has this to say:

Wilko Liquid Soapflakes contain only pure soap with no additives or fragrances, making them a great choice for those with sensitive skin. They don't contain any animal products and have never been tested on animals, making them suitable for vegans. The soap comes from coconut and sunflower oil and is palm oil free. 

And it costs £3 for 750 ml. 

Supposedly, Dri-Pak makes some with what looks like an identical formula, but this was the one I found. 

So I started researching recipes online. 

I had previously been washing my face with olive oil, which was good but not perfect. I found THIS recipe and have been using it successfully. The recipe calls for 15-20 drops essential oils, but I didn't want anything smelly near my face. 

The recipe also calls for distilled water, which I can't find here. Yes, with water you risk bacterial growth, but i feel if you make this small amount and use it up within three months you should be fine. 

The recipe also calls for vegetable glycerine. I have some which I ordered online, but have found some in the past at Boots by the cough syrup. In the US i used to buy it on the soapmaking aisle of Hobby Lobby. Make sure it says VEGETABLE glycerine (spelled without the final e in the US) or it might be animal derived. 

This is AMAZING. My skin feels clean and soft. It takes off makeup. It is gentle. It makes a lovely, creamy white liquid which ....and there's no polite way to say this.....looks and feels a bit like semen. But don't let that put you off. 

Jizz Face Wash

Blend in a food processor or blender until a creamy liquid forms.

1/2 cup olive oil

2 TB liquid soap (like the one above or Dr Bronner's)

2 TB vegetable glycerine

2 TB water (distilled if you can get it, boiled and cooled if you can't)

Put it in a small spray bottle or a small pump bottle. Using a funnel will help you get in in the bottle and not all over the counter. Learn from my experience, people. Use a funnel. Give it a little swirl before you use it as it may have separated. 

If you'd like, follow it up with a toner made from equal parts apple cider vinegar and water (plus a little extra splash of water). 

I was so buoyed up by my face wash, that i started to research a body wash recipe. I came across THIS recipe which contained all things I already owned. I had an empty shampoo bottle to put it in. I decided to give it a go and I have been really pleased. 

I don't mind a bit of lavender essential oil in the body wash because I can control how much to use. 

Again, this recipe calls for distilled water, if you can find it--great. If not, use this within three months.

This recipe also calls for aloe vera gel. I buy it at Holland and Barrett when they have their Penny Sale so you can buy one and get the second for 1p. 

It is not tested on animals and has a short ingredient list. Plus it isn't green. Why do some companies add green dye to aloe vera gel??? It should be clear. This one is clear.

Amazing Body Wash
In a bowl, carefully whisk all the ingredients starting with the aloe vera.
1/4 cup aloe vera gel
1/2 cup water (distilled if you can get it, boiled and cooled if you can't)
1 TB olive oil
1/2 cup liquid soap (as above or Dr Bronner's)
Up to 25 drops essential oil

Careful when you get to the soap, whisk slowly so it doesn't foam up excessively. Then decant into an empty squeezy bottle using a funnel.

Give it a shake before you use it in case it separates. I find you need to use a little bit more than commercial body wash when you squirt it on your puff. But it works and it feels amazing on my sensitive skin.

I follow it up with body oil made from half almond oil and half sunflower oil and a few drops of lavender oil. I store it in a small dark coloured spray bottle.

My spray bottle looks like this but is black not clear. I got it from B & M Bargains for £1. I use the same style bottle for my Jizz face wash.

That's my handmade soapy things. If you give them a try, let me know. I'll blog soon about the tooth powder and deodorant. 

How To Bathe a Snail

Hello! It's been nearly eight weeks since we adopted the Bronte Snails. Can you believe it? It's been a learning curve because they require much more daily care than the Spiderbabes. We adore our spidery friends and wouldn't trade them for the world, but it has been lovely to have the Snails to interact with as well.

For me, as a person who doesn't get to cuddle many animals due to crippling allergies, the Bronte Snails have been great as I get to hold them. While you technically *can* hold the spiders, the BTS (that's the British Tarantula Society) really discourages it.

The Bronte GALS (Giant African Land Snails) or ACE (Anne, Charlotte and Emily) as they are also known are fascinating creatures. We know a lot about spider anatomy, but have had to brush up on our snail anatomy.

For instance, did you know that snails are hermaphrodites? Yup, they have both a penis and a vagina so if you put two together, they will mate and the larger one will be the female and lay eggs. This is why the Bronte Snails are all living in separate containers.

For what I am about to describe, it might help to know  little basic anatomy. Here is a helpful diagram.
                   
                           
When you look online at How To Care For Your Giant African Land Snail websites (and there are a lot of them) they talk about the importance of keeping your snail moist and warm. They can die if they dry out or get too cold. The Spiderbabes all have heat mats, so we know how to deal with this warmth issue.

We keep the humidity up in their tanks by misting the substrate, but we were finding that the condensation was making it boggy (I was having to siphon out about a Tablespoon of water each day that had collected in a puddle.) Nobody likes to live in a puddle, not even snails. This is an ongoing issue we are still working through.

We kept reading about "Snail Bathing" but kept reading conflicting reports. How much water do you use? If you use too much they can drown. But how much is too much?

Then we found this video:

      So, we decided to try it last night as it was clean out the tanks night.

Problem one: The water should be tepid but on the warm side. When you run the tap from our sink it was either HOT or COLD. We could not get warm to save our lives. I have misted the tank with a spray bottle where the water was cool room temperature and have watched the snails suck back into their shells at lightening speed like an undescended testicle. And hot water might burn their little sensitive skin.
Problem two: Even if we could get the temperature right, we weren't keen on the water waste for running the tap that long for each snail.
Problem solved: we filled the sink with tepid but warm water and used a plastic pitcher as a waterfall to pour over their heads.

I cannot gauge the "emotion" that snails have, but I can say they reacted in a way that seemed to show pleasure. At least they did not show displeasure.

Often in their tanks, you see their foot (see anatomy above) quite big and spread out beneath their shell with their head close to the mantle edge, but often don't see them "stick their neck out." I held them the opposite way from the video so I could see their wee faces. The point of the shell was facing my fingers and their head was looking at me.

As soon as Spiderman started to slowly pour the warm water each snail extended their head towards the water and I could feel the foot sliding forward in my hand. In the end each one extended up my wrist into the waterfall and was extended between 3 and 4 inches long. And each of them did that adorable thing they do when you put their favourite food cucumber in their tank--one eyestalk goes up and down like a piston.

I should mention here in the nearly eight weeks since we have brought them home, they have DOUBLED in size. Their shells are now about as big as an egg  (a large egg in Charlotte's case--she's a beast!) Anne comes in in second place and Emily was a titch when we brought her home, but is catching up with her sisters.

Remember that when fully grown the Bronte GALS will look like this:
                

After their bath we put them in the travel box while we cleaned out their tanks and gave them fresh substrate. Each one stayed extended for a long time and so I managed to snap a good picture of each of them.

In ACE order:

Anne all flattened out

Charlotte trying to escape (again)

Emily trying to copy her big sister Charlotte

Emily has had some shell issues. The others instinctively went to their cuttlefish bone and ate some for calcium every day. Especially Charlotte. She nearly ate her whole cuttlefish bone which is why she is so much bigger--more calcium = bigger shell. But Emily never went on there. We had to teach her how by putting her food on there so she'd get lured over to the cuttlefish and hopefully figure out how to eat some calcium. We also started supplementing their calcium by sprinkling limestone flour (calcium carbonate) on their food. 

Is there such a thing as a Special Needs Snail? Maybe. If so, that might be Emily.

Anyway, because she wasn't eating enough calcium, my thumb pushed through her shell a month ago when I was trying to pick her up. I cried as I thought i had hurt her. But what she did next was fascinating.

She retracted her head inside the shell and came out where the breakage was and starting rasping it with her mouth to file the rough edges down. Then when the break was smooth, she secreted a white gluey substance to seal the edges. Over time her shell grew back. If you look at the picture below I have circled where the breakage was and you can see how much new shell she has created since then.

It has been an interesting journey to get to know these GALS. We are so blessed to have these wonderful animals in our lives--the Spiderbabes and the Bronte Snails.

Our Daily Bread

Back when I still could tolerate wheat we had a bread machine and my favourite bread to make was Anadama bread.  traditional New England bread and the (apocryphal) legend says that Anna was a fisherman’s wife who regularly fed her husband cornmeal mush flavoured with molasses. One day, the story goes, he got sick of this meal and added some flour and yeast and turned it into bread all the while muttering, “Anna--damn her.”

Basically it was mostly flour, a bit of cornmeal and molasses. 

What it was was freakin’ delicious.

Ever had that amazing dark bread at Outback Steak House? It is kinda like that. I haven’t been to one of those in years--the clue is in the name--STEAK HOUSE. But I remember that bread fondly. I could have made a whole meal of it.

So I looked at some Anadama recipes on line and adapted one to suit our loaf tin. I also wanted a quick bread as I didn’t want to faff about with yeast. I am willing to deal with yeast for pizza dough, but have no patience for a loaf of bread.

You don’t need yeast for this rich, flavoursome loaf.

Anadama Bread

 Preheat your oven to 200C/400F. Lightly grease a loaf pan and then put a bit of parchment in there so you can remove it easily after baking. The oil helps the paper not to shift around when you are spooning in batter.

 First sour your milk. We are making buttermilk here to give the bread a bit of tang.

1 cup plant based milk (we used Oatly, but soya milk would also do nicely)

1 TB lemon juice

Add the lemon juice to the milk and let it curdle for a few minutes.

Stir in 1 ½ TB blackstrap molasses with a fork until dissolved in the buttermilk.

1 ¾ cups wholemeal spelt flour, sifted (whole wheat would work as well)

¼ cup cornmeal

1 tsp salt

1tsp baking SODA

Mix all your dry ingredients together in a bowl.

Add  your buttermilk molasses mixture and stir until just combined.

Spoon into your parchment lined loaf tin and smooth the top.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Lift out and let cool on a wire rack for as long as you can stand it before slicing it.

This was *just* like I remembered it being. Moist, dense, lightly sweet, a little crunchy from the cornmeal and just plain delicious. Despite the fact that molasses is a sweetener, the bread is rather savoury.

Anna, whoever you were….bless you.

Bread of Life

When my stomach rebelled over the protein in wheat known as gluten I felt extremely sorry for myself and spent lots of time moping about bakeries and bemoaning my lot to anyone who would listen.

I thought I would never get decent bread again.

Several years later after much experimentation, I have successfully made brownies and all manner of tray bakes gluten free as well as perfected a flatbread that works like naan bread. But loaves….not so much.

Since our arrival in Cymru I have experimented with adding spelt back into my life. Spelt is an ancient form of what with *considerably* less gluten--it has a completely different genetic structure than wheat which my tummy seems to tolerate. I still bake gluten free (as a matter of fact we had gluten free brownies last weekend) but I have been experimenting with putting spelt bread back into my life.

It started with the Lemon Poppy Seed Bread. I had this loaf pan just calling out to be used so I did a bit of research..

I found this recipe www.anjasfood4thought.com/2012/01/spelt-quick-bread.html  and since it was actually meant to be made with spelt (which having less gluten can rise less that wheat) so adapting a wheat recipe to spelt can sometimes not work quite as well)  I thought it would be safe to try.

Oh

My

Stars.

Bread is back on the menu, baby.

Spelt Oat Sunflower Bread

 Preheat your oven to 200C/400F. Lightly grease a loaf pan and then put a bit of parchment in there so you can remove it easily after baking. The oil helps the paper not to shift around when you are spooning in batter.

 First sour your milk. We are making buttermilk here to give the bread a bit of tang.

1 cup plant based milk (we used Oatly, but soya milk would also do nicely)

1 TB lemon juice

Add the lemon juice to the milk and let it curdle.

1 ½ cups wholemeal spelt flour, sifted (could use whole wheat flour)

½ cup oats

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking SODA

¼ cup sunflower seeds, divided

Mix all your dry ingredients together in a bowl  reserving 1 TB sunflower seeds.

Add  your buttermilk and stir until just combined.

Spoon into your parchment lined loaf tin and smooth the top. Sprinkle the remaining TB sunflower seeds evenly on top.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Lift out and let cool on a wire rack for as long as you can stand it before slicing it.

This was *amazing* The buttermilk really gave it a lovely sourdough feel.

We had it with a rustic potato and roasted garlic soup. We meant to eat the rest of the loaf the next day but it was sooooo freakin’ good we kept going back to nibble on it throughout the evening.

It tastes very good with jam.

 I am conscious of not overdoing spelt for fear of developing an intolerance but there was just one more type of bread I was dying to try.

Stay tuned for the Our Daily Bread.

The tale of the curious kitten and the ginormous box

Once upon a time there was a little kitten who was very curious. She loved to get her little kitty claws into anything and Rawr Rawr Rawr take the wrapping paper off. Opening parcels, unwrapping presents and peeling labels were just some of her favourite things.

She lived in the magical upside down house in the far away kingdom of Wales and one day she was sitting in her crooked front room playing with a ball of string when she heard the doorbell. BING BONG! Oh how she leapt up and rushed to the door to open it, but unfortunately she had been a rather silly kitty and not hung her handbag with the keys inside by the front door like she was supposed to! Quickly she raced up the stairs and darted into each of the rooms swearing Rawr! Rawr! Rawr! as she searched for her handbag.

Luckily, her downstairs neighbour was home and he opened the door and spoke to the friendly postman and signed for the parcel so when the embarrassed little kitty finally managed to get her front door open (being thankful it was only the postman and not a house fire and vowing to always leave the key by the door) she was stunned to see a ginormous parcel waiting for her.

 Rawr Rawr Rawr! she cried in delight and carefully carried the ginormous box up the crooked stairs. She set the box on the table and looked curiously to see who had sent such a big, lovely box.

It was from Friends. Most people only have friends with a lower case f but the little kitten was blessed with Friends with a capital F who were also friends with a lower case f.  These were Friends from another kingdom far, far away whom she missed greatly since moving to the upside down house in the kingdom of Wales.

 

Doing what kittens like to do best she tried to rip open the exceedingly well taped parcel with her claws and when that didn’t work she resorted to a pair of scissors. Rawr Rawr Rawr!  She tore into the box. Inside were mountains of beautiful lavender tissue paper--just the colour of Hitchin lavender from that far away kingdom that she missed. She carefully folded all the lavender tissue paper to use again (she may have liked to tear things up, but her Mama didn’t raise no fool) and peered inside the ginormous box.

 

Oh what she beheld there! Cards and individually wrapped pressies all in beautiful paper. Here is where she was struck with a dilemma, oh best beloved. (a dilemma is not a type of anvil so do not fear for the little kitten’s safety here!).  She knew the box was actually addressed to the little kitten AND the big tomcat that she was married to. But the tomcat was away in Lampeter doing whatever big cats do all day at work. He wouldn’t be home for aaaages  and the little kitten wasn’t sure she could hold out with all those lovely pressies with wrapping paper just *waiting* to be torn off. She paced the floor, she fixed a pot of tea and tried to wait. But as the kettle was boiling she saw the kindly face of the big tomcat who smiled at her and said, “of course you should open it--kitties do such things.”  and she knew it would be alright because the big tomcat did not derive pleasure from opening gifts, but got his pleasure from seeing the little kitten happy.

 

So she was off like a shot! Rawr Rawr Rawr! Wrapping paper was flying and the little kitten was squealing  and much excitement ensued. There was a small moment when she sneezed a dainty kitten sneeze a few times because another curious cat named Bella had been fond of the box as well (who could blame her? It is in a kitten’s nature to be curious about everything, but most especially boxes).

 

In the end she felt overwhelmed with joy and did a little flappy dance as if she were a bird for inside the ginormous parcel was all sorts of the kittens favourite things. Not raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens (although she was rather fond of the whiskers on her tomcat) but

Books to read

Beautiful ornaments and decorations for Christmas, perfect for the little tree

Interesting old badges such as the one from the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977

 A tiny silver ring box so small the fairies must have made it

CDs of favourite children’s stories to listen to

Delicious delicacies such as pine nuts, Nak’d bars and dairy free chocolate covered raisins

Little cases to bake fairy cakes in

A packet of wonderfully terrible/terribly wonderful Christmas cracker jokes because the little kitten loved to laugh

A box of chocolate mint tea! Who even knew that even existed?

A game of Nun Bowling!

 

The little kitten was overwhelmed, excited, thrilled and suddenly very hungry so she nibbled a few of the treats from a heart shaped tin and then emailed the tomcat with all the news (not as easy as you think typing with paws on a tablet) and then she sat down to give thanks for love and Friendship (and friendship!)

 

Thank you dear Friends for making our Christmas so beautiful and special. We miss you all, but we are happy here in the far away kingdom of Wales. Our lives were very good when we lived by you, but they are also very good living far away.

 

Happy endings all around. Rawr Rawr Rawr.

If I Ran the Zoo

I mean, who as a child didn’t have dreams of being a zookeeper? Every hand should be up. Even I, with my allergies to every known furry creature dreamed of working with animals. I just pictured myself doing whilst wearing a protective face mask and an allergen proof space suit, that’s all.

 

For the last four years or so, my beloved Spiderman has been a volunteer zookeeper at the London Zoo. He lived his childhood dream of caring for God’s creatures. For several years he worked all over the zoo, talking to tourists about animals and their behaviours or giving them directions to where they wanted to go, but for the last year or so he has worked with the birds. Not The Birds as in the Alfred Hitchcock film where they attack and try to kill you (although he once received the “red badge of courage” from a feisty, female red and yellow barbet)  

the Colin Baker of the bird world

 

Sadly, because of our impending move to Wales (not Whales as so many of our American well-wishers have spelled it) his time at the Zoo has ended.

 

He was able to get some goodbye pictures with some penguins that he was especially close to.

 

Here he is with Puddle the Penguin who has an affection for all things human as he was hand reared as a chick. He loves to cuddle up and get a scritchy-scratch under the chin.

 

Warning do not try this at home.

Or at the Zoo. (Unless you are a keeper and a friend.)

 

Here they are sharing a sweet and tender moment of goodbye together whist being “photo bombed” by the very curious Reggie.

 

Lastly, here are some fuzzy chicks just about two months old. They still have much of their grey downy feathers and look a bit scruffy, but that’s just like being a teenager and having spots.

 

It’s all part of growing up.

 

I am so glad he has had the opportunity to do something he has always dreamed about, especially since my allergies prevent us from having lots of pets. (Spiderman swears after I die he’s getting a dachshund farm) 

 

There’s always the Red Kite reserve outside Lampeter in Wales.

Softly, softly

We have hard water. White chalky deposits cover every stainless steel surface. If we didn’t descale it our kettle would grow enough fur inside that it would look like magic rocks. FACT.

remember growing these crystals in a jar as a child?

  

 We also don’t have a tumble drier. Which means that most things--especially towels--are more than a wee bit on the scratchy side. Most fabric softeners contain a whole host of chemicals--including beef tallow in the case of Downey and some brands of drier sheets. YUK. You can buy eco ones but they cost a packet. I tried just using vinegar in combination with washing soda (soda crystals) as a water softener and there was a bit of improvement. But the towels were still quite sandpaper-y.

 

I found several recipes online about making your own from water, vinegar and hair conditioner. Most websites talked about buying the cheapest hair conditioner you could get. The problem is many beauty products--cheap and expensive--can contain some pretty nasty ingredients.

 

Petroleum in the form of paraffinium liquidum  which is mineral oil.

Propylene glycol which is a form of anti-freeze.

Paraben preservatives which can disrupt hormone function and have been found in breast tissue of women with breast cancer.

MEA, DEA or TEA which mix with other ingredients to form formaldehyde in the body.

Cheap foaming agent sodium lauryl sulphate which is an industrial degreaser and can cause serious, burn like skin irritation.

 

I wanted to try this so I hunted around for an inexpensive conditioner that didn’t contain any nasties or animal excretions. It also could not be owned by a parent company like Proctor and Gamble who we boycott because they do horrible things with animal testing.

 

I found this conditioner at Wilkinsons. It was Wilko brand and was called Fruity Citrus Conditioner. It contained lots of more gentle ingredients I was familiar with and none of the nasties on the above list. It also had citrus aurantifolia fruit extract which seemed more natural that fake smelling stuff. It smelled faintly of oranges and I thought it would go well with the orange vinegar I was brewing. Plus it was on special 2 bottles for £2.

 

So I made it. The original recipe made a huge amount and I’ve not got a container big enough nor the place to store it so I halved the recipe.

 

Original recipe--makes 11 cups

6 cups water

3 cups vinegar

2 cups hair conditioner

My recipe--makes 5.5 cups

3 cups water

1.5  cups (orange) vinegar

1 cup conditioner

 

I put it in this 1 litre jug and gave it a good old shake for the whole length of Tom and Olly’s Love at the Disco that I was jamming to on my I-pod. That was it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. It had a faint pleasant scent--like an orange creamsicle. But not overpowering like a French whorehouse the way so many fabric softeners do. Smelling heavily perfumed fabric softener makes me reach for my asthma inhaler.  Plus with this recipe you can’t smell it on the final product when it comes out of the washing machine—it just smells fresh and clean. Perfect for us.

I’ll let you know how it goes--but I’m pretty pleased so far. Now go and make it yourself. 

The only dog that doesn’t make me sneeze

Everybody loves K-9 the robot dog from Doctor Who don’t  they? How could you not?

A  few months ago when I made my decapitated head of the Jabberwock for school, Spiderman asked me a question. He held the head (and went galumphing back--sorry wrong story) and said, “If you changed the shape a bit, this could be the head of K-9. I wonder if you could make one?” I know a challenge when I hear one and so I agreed to give it a go. He made me promise if it didn’t go well and my perfectionist self felt the least bit stressed  I would  abandon the project. For this reason, I really took my time and did not rush. My crafting theory is often once I get a cracking idea in my head I want to stay up all night getting it done all in one go. This project needed to be different.

I started with proper research not just a dream I had (which, to be fair, is the basis for most of best ideas.) You can actually find plans on our old pal google for building a model for K-9. This gave me a few patterns for size and shape. I also found where people had attempted to do what I was doing--sew a model not build it out of metal. I looked at where they had made shortcuts--particularly in the recessed bits on his sides. Many just used a dark panel to suggest a recessed bit rather than attempt to sew a sunken panel which I quickly decided to magpie and use that idea on my K-9.

I did do a fair bit of dreaming as well. I made sketches and wrote ideas for how I would make certain parts. I started to collect bits and bobs  like buttons for his eye stalk and some plaid elastic for his collar. I started saving every bit of cardboard I could find as I knew he would need it inside for stability. I bartered an old radio antennae by doing a bit of sewing for a friend. I found some cool heavy duty metallic silver fabric at the market and I knew I was ready.

So here, after months of planning, is the result. Our very own dog. I am chuffed to bits with the results and cannot stop giggling every time I see him. I like to say (in my best fluffy bunny voice)

           

            Me: Wook at you, you are such a good wittle doggie!

            K-9: (in my best John Leeson imitation) Affirmative!

Here he is in glorious Technicolor, from every conceivable angle. I have him on the bed  in some shots because he’s only about 23 inches tall from ears to bottom and I wanted to get a good view. Enjoy!

The whole she-bang

.

 Look at that sweet face!

 Here he is from the side

Here’s the other side with the computer screen

.

This is his tail made from a radio antennae (thanks Steve!)

Last, the computer keypad on his back

.

What do you think? He’s not super durable (no rough-housing , thank you) in the sense that he is held together with copious amounts of thread and hot glue as well as cuckoo spit and dream clouds. Okay, maybe not that last bit, but as I say about the spiders, he is “a looking at pet rather than a playing with pet.” He’ll be perfect for what we want him to do which is sit beside the sofa and make us smile.

Affirmative.

Daytrippers, part the first

I love to take a day trip. You get to go somewhere interesting then come home and sleep in your own bed. Well in this case, someone else’s bed--but you know what I mean.

 We arrived at the Windmill on Saturday and since we had enough food with us we could have a meal without then having to go back out and hunt down a supermarket. On Sunday we pottered into the village of Edelsbourough which was quite small and scoped out the bus stop and found a well stocked newsagent/ post office where we bought a few items like crackers (wheat ones for Spiderman , rye ones for me), hummus, a cucumber and some frozen peas and oven chips. Then we toddled on home back to the windmill and chilled out.

 Monday we took the bus into Dunstable which is where Jesus was born, according to Alice Tinker from the Vicar of Dibley. But the Vicar put her right explaining it was it a STABLE  rather in DunSTABLE. We popped into the library to use their computers to check email and then did a spot of shopping at the big supermarket for some specialty vegan stuff like soya yogurt and took the bus home and had a peaceful evening in preparing for the day trips.

 Day trip one--Whipsnade Zoo

Whipsnade was the only place we couldn’t figure out how to get to by bus. We would have to call a taxi. It wasn’t until late Monday night, however, that we realized that the windmill didn’t have a phone. And if we were normal people who had a mobile phone this would not have been an issue, but we figured we would find a way to sort the issue in the morning. Early Tuesday we hiked into town and played “hunt the payphone.” I found one and Spiderman, armed with coins and a list of local taxi numbers entered the booth elated and came out a bit dejected. Apparently payphones don’t take coins anymore. You can use your debit card, but they will charge you £1.20 to do it. After much grumbling we decided to bite the bullet and just phone. I am so glad we did because 10 minutes later we were whisked off in a comfortable cab and dropped off at the zoo--just in time for opening. Then the extra special news was that because Spiderman is a regular volunteer at the London Zoo (2 Sundays a month) we got in FREE which saved us about £40. Hoorah!

 Many vegans shun zoos as cruel to animals. I have certainly been to zoos like that in my lifetime--animals in small cages with a concrete floor and nothing to do but pace around and bite themselves out of boredom and frustration. But the London Zoo and Whipsnade are really different. They work hard to give animals as natural of a habitat as possible and work with conservation and breeding programmes to reintroduce endangered animals back into the wild. Plus Whipsnade is ENORMOUS--600 acres of land for animals to roam about. We were there for 5 hours and walked many miles. There is even a steam train you can catch but it costs £5 per person and since we got in free and brought pack lunches and were feeling strong and energetic (read that: cheap) we gave it a miss.  

 Best bits from the zoo:

Ring tailed lemurs are about as cutie-patootie as you can get. You could get really close to them as well.

They also like to sit with chin up, arms and legs outstretched (with their little nuts just out there for God and everyone to see) to sunbathe because apparently their fur is thinner on their chests.

We saw a wolverine that looked nothing like Hugh Jackman.

Here’s me comparing how wide I can stretch my mouth open compared to a hippo. And I thought I was a big mouth.

The hippo was bathing in a pool of poo filled water--they like to mark their territory with excrement--so no matter how many times they get clean water, the first thing they do is crap in it.  But it was fun to watch them submerge and then pop up to huff a bit of air and then go back down underwater with a plip…plip…plip.

 Here’s a cheetah under Cheetah’s Rock.

Look at the adorable mongooses--or is the plural of mongoose mongeese??? They were dwarf mongooses all cuddled up for a nap.

Here were the funniest, most active animals we saw--baby wild boars. Look at those soft stripy coats that help them to be camouflaged. They were rolling around pell mell, tumble bumble so much that we couldn’t help laughing.

Later we came by and they were all tuckered out and snoozing  except one naughty looking one which Spiderman christened The Poky Little Peccary (peccary being a type of wild boar and The Poky Little Puppy being a favourite book from childhood.)

Here’s me again showing off what I would look like with antlers. Quite good, I think. You could hang your washing on them or Christmas lights.

Lastly, here’s the penguins. It’s not a zoo trip without penguins. Spiderman and I have a wonderful shared memory of watching the penguins all line up in a queue for their fish at the London Zoo in 1990.

These were fed by throwing handfuls of fish into their swimming pond and then all the penguins diving in to catch them. Here’s one little guy just hoping for another fish.

Then it was time to get on back home, but we had to figure out how to phone for a taxi. There was a very nice bloke working in the ticket booth who called for us, but unfortunately when the taxi arrived we had a bit of communication problems with our driver.

Him: Address?

Us: The Windmill,  Edelsbourough

Him: Address?

Us: Edelsbourough

Him: Street?

Us: there is no street name, it’s on a private road in Edelsbourough.

Him: Address?

We finally convinced him to drive and when we saw someplace that looked familiar we asked him to stop and then just walked the rest of the way home.

It was a lovely day, but for an allergic animal lover like me, it was sadly a two hankie day. I blew my nose all day due to hay fever from the grass and the animal fur. But it was worth it. Oh I almost forgot the magnificent white lion!!! This was carved out of chalk on the hillside by the zoo and we could see it from our windmill. During WWII it had to be covered up with camouflaged nets and plants so that German planes would not see it and bomb nearby Luton and Dunstable.

Stay tuned for Daytrippers. part the second tomorrow!