Due to the fact that we have a 6+ month old baby in tow as well as a six year old and three cats to look after at home, we have decided to keep to mainland UK for our annual fortnight holiday this year, or, to be more specific, to be based at home and take day trips to various places within a short drive from the hyse.

These places should (already have, in some cases) include zoos, nature reserves, pubs, rivers, canals, woods and heaths, farms, dinosaur golfing, foot golf, boating, cinemas, a big city or two and various tourist attractions. Oh... and more pubs.

I've set our eldest boy the challenge to find animals during this fortnight that begin with every letter of the alphabet apart from 'X'. I'd prefer wild British animals to populate this list but it would be fair to say that going to the zoo helped with this list yesterday ("Zebra"). Then again, he is hugely helped by the fact that his father can literally take him to see a badger or a barn owl or a buzzard and even if he couldn't, his father could tell him that the beetle that he found isn't just a beetle, but a "bloody nosed beetle" or a "blister beetle" or a "brassy willow beetle" (or for that matter a "blue willow beetle"!).

Anyway... below are a few shots I've taken on our trips over the last few days...

I think the boys are having fun.  What  kid DOESN'T like bugs and creepy-crawlies and lions and tigers and tropical butterflies and leaf cutter bees and barn owls and foxes and rabbits and stoats and red kites and spiders and bats and eagles and piranha fish after all?

Animal highlights so far have included the ostrich below (at the zoo of course, although lovely to see her on an egg), bloody-nosed beetle (photo below too), emperor dragonfly (Yes... "E" for Emperor dragonfly - my zoological mind won't allow any child of mine to just call it "D" for dragonfly I'm afraid), leopard (zoo also of course), tiger (ditto) and the omnipresent (currently) cinnabar moth caterpillars in our local meadows (photos below again).

All this and our fortnight together is only two days old so far!