When I visited Edinburgh for my Alphabet Adventure, I very much liked it. Which is lucky, because the zoo have recently taken ownership of two pandas - on loan from China. I remember the Park & Ride bus stopping at the zoo on the way back, and I considered getting off but it didn’t look all that impressive from the outside. Now, it is one of my top destinations!

I loved hearing about the pandas arrival - being flown in on a FedEx plane, and being nicely secured in see through FedEx crates. Who knew you could just FedEx a panda? It would have been brilliant if that had been one of the packages Tom Hanks had been left with on Cast Away.

Anyway, a couple of thoughts after this video.

Nice use of the word ensconced by the anchor there. I’m a bit concerned that they were welcomed with bagpipes. I mean, these instruments are a… how to put it politely… an acquired taste. Surely more scary than welcoming to a panda?

I love that people lined the streets to wave their Scottish flags at the panda truck, even though they didn’t get sight of the animals themselves. I guess they’ll take a few weeks to be settled in before making any public appearances.

The zoo are optimistic that the pandas will bring increased visitor numbers to the zoo. Well, obviously I am one of those, but as the man rightly says at the end of the video above - if they want to keep momentum going for ten years, they’ll need a cub. It’s almost impossible that the pandas will mate successfully, but if there was a baby panda at Edinburgh… well, I think I might move.