Actually, not an elephant, but the unique selling point of Dudley Zoo is that it’s also a castle. The animals are milling around the ruin walls and you get the experience of visiting a zoo but also visiting a castle. There’s a variety of animals in the castle grounds, and the zoo does a good job of offering up some good views and some things I’d not seen before - the ability to go through a little tunnel and pop up in a little cupola in the middle of the lynx exhibit, for example.

This past weekend, I headed towards Marwell Zoo for something of a family meetup. It was a nice day, the rain held off with just a few spots threatening but then scampering away. I took a few photos but mostly wandered around chatting and wondering why the animals are always asleep when I go to see them. It was slightly disappointing to be at a zoo quite a few hundred miles away from where there’s a potential baby panda going to make an appearance soon.

Snakes. Last time I was at a zoo, I went into the tropical display and the first thing I saw was a huge, enormous snake. Just thinking about it now makes my skin crawl. At the time, I jumped a mile and hid behind Mr C. Never mind the very thick glass that separated us from the snake, and never mind that it was more interested in the thermostat control on the wall of it’s tank.

Who would have thought that getting no sleep, leaving the house at 5am, traipsing around a field for ten hours, then packing bags and driving to Cornwall would be tiring? First task was shopping. A bit of advice for you: Stay away from Truro. Last year we got stuck in roads and roads of traffic, no matter which direction we turned in. This year, we headed to Truro and got there with no trouble, but there was nowhere to park.

Having got so close and yet so far away from Truro yesterday, I made sure we were up and awake early enough to beat the crowds and get a parking space. After months and months of talking about it, I finally plucked up the courage to shell out a bit of money and get a new phone. It’s not the one I dreamed about but it’s pretty close. It’s a bit more complicated than my ancient Nokia, and I still haven’t figured out how to put it on discreet or silent yet, and I don’t like the stupid noises it makes when I’m switching it on and off but that’s all I can find wrong with it.

After months of bad weather, I actually managed to get a nice, sunny day and one where I didn’t have to work. So, I hot-footed it to Marwell Zoo and spent a couple of hours there snapping pictures and looking at the cute animals. There were a million kids there, along with their mothers and the pushchairs. In fact, I’d go so far as to wager a bet that it was actually a pushchair convention, considering I don’t think I actually spotted anyone without one.

Today, I almost managed to finish reading the whole of The Economist. I’m getting closer and closer every week, but my worry is that I won’t ever actually reach my goal. This week’s edition had no surveys in it and had only the basic sections, two special reports, stories from different countries plus business and finance. If I couldn’t read it when it’s at its smallest, when will I ever be able to?