Mama's taking me to the zoo tomorrow

Spring officially begins today! From now on the days will be longer than the nights. Its been becoming more pleasant the last few weeks - going home more frequently in the light - rather than the dark - being able to hang my laundry on the balcony again in a reasonable hope that it will dry there (rather than having a clothes horse cluttering up my limited living space - or dragging them down to the launderette to use the driers). On one or two days it has even hit 20 degrees.
My one disappointment has been that, of the eight balcony boxes I planted up with bulbs in November, only five showed any signs of life on my return. I guess the local bird population dug up and ate the others, despite me offering them luscious fat balls to feed on during the winter. Next year its barbed wire and razor blades!!

Today I went out with my camera - for only about the second time in six months. A friend invited me to the zoo - with his family - to celebrate his birthday. It felt strange to be part of a family gathering where I didn't really belong - but warming to be welcomed into the bosom of someone else's family, even if only for a few short hours - and a good opportunity to practice my Dutch. He and I have had some real arguments in the past few months, and this was very much a welcome and symbolic olive branch.

A major tragedy occurred at the zoo today - one of the twin polar bear cubs that were born in January, drowned in the morning. The zoo prides itself on being one of the few that is succesfully breeding polar bears. But today the mother was lying over the carcass of her young offspring in a clear state of mourning. The zoo made the brave (I think) decision to leave the carcass in the pen (acknowledge death) and allow the mother to grieve, for however long necessary. More cynically they might be aware of how deeply a bereaved polar bear's ire might run when tryng to remove the corpse of a recently deceased offspring.

Elsewhere the balance of nature seemed to be running more smoothly. Loads of healthy Dutch kids running around and getting excited about seeing eliphants or tigers, or just being allowed to play with sand and water and get dirty and wet.

There were at at least three occupied storks nests. Storks are widely seen as a symbol of fertility and good fortune. In Poland in which, by virtue of being a catholic country, fertility and good fortune are more related - nearly every farm house we went past had a pole designed to attract storks and presumably increase the catholic birth rate.

Here in, the more rather more calvinistic, Rhenen- in the user friendly farm animal compound (where the goats come up to you asking to be stroked) I heard a father call out to his daughter (or son?) called Karma. I couldn't help but wonder if (s)he was an unplanned member of the human family. Was there a stork pole on top of their apartement?


Elsewhere there was a rather sad looking group of lions.

The placard said that lions rely on their lionesses (note the plural) to catch their prey - although the males always have first pickings of the carcass. They also can mate up to fifty times day. That made me decide a) to go to my butchers to ask about the availability of fresh antelope and zebra meat and b) reprioritise my reincarnation choices.