Sunday, its cold and grey to start with and I wake up feeling decidedly groggy from the meds. My partner is up and brings me coffee quickly followed by a bacon bagel. A chat ensues and we decide to go the zoo, Twycross zoo, which is not far from us. We decide to go as a family so we get ourselves ready for the trip, including getting my hair braided for the day.

So of we went to the zoo having booked our tickets on the zoo app. We arrive and are taken aback by just how many people have turned out, families everywhere, all wearing more clothes than us and many in wellies. I think we sorted out quite quickly that we might be underdressed. Getting in was tricky to start with as their IT system could not find my order number. Eventually we were ushered to visitor services who had an older IT system that found us. We wandered off into the zoo to seek animal moments. There were some good moments but generally the animals looked miserable, cold and much of the zoo had been affected by COVID.

There were apes, a rhino and gorillas but all looked cold and bored and by about two o’clock so were we. We headed for the food court and drank coffee and nibbled sandwiches while watching the snow leopard wander around its enclosure and looking like I felt in lock down. Its that universal same old same old experience of being cut off from what is natural and normal. Enough was enough and we drove home. It was a better day than sitting around or going to the gym but somehow the experience was saddening to see how the zoo had been affected by COVID.

I settle down to watch half a rugby match and then drift into the evening where I eat tea against a background of TV. There is Peaky Blinders and then the news full of the Ukrainian war. I try to draft the blog but frankly it is difficult when everything is invaded by the inhumanity of war. Nothing is beyond being newsworthy and there is scant regard for peoples privacy or dignity in their struggle to survive. Our news machine is as self interested as any other and when it takes up the moral higher ground it also looses its sense of humanity.