Spotted in Brussels: three porcine pals stacked up for some rest and relaxation.

We had a fantastic day at the zoo yesterday. Although we arrived during a huge tropical downpour and walked through buckets of warm rain in the first 15 minutes, it was fine for the rest of the day. We started with a jungle breakfast with macaws, snakes, tamarins, and a beautiful family of urang utans. This place has the world’s largest number of urang utans in any zoo, and there have been thirty six baby urang utans born here. We were able to watch two of these youngsters play with their parents while we ate our breakfast, including a cute little tantrum that resulted in the little one falling off the platform.

I also introduced Hayden to Mira the Mexican milk snake.

Singapore zoo has a very successful breeding program, with around 300 births and hatchings of 44 species in the last year, including Hamadryas Baboons, cotton-top tamarins, pygmy hippopotamus, Douc langurs, proboscis monkeys, meerkats, manatees, komodo dragons, spotted mousedeer, oriental small-clawed otters, Chinese stripe-necked turtles and Linne’s two-toed sloths. There were zoo-borns everywhere, it was so delightful to see so many different species flourishing in lush and spacious enclosures.

One of our major renovation works for the past five months has been upgrading the spare room. First, we have removed the 1960′s wallpaper, which had been painted over repeatedly. We then washed down all the walls, filled the holes, and then made a trip to Brico to request new paint in broken French. One coat of primer on the walls and ceiling, two coats of eucalyptus Levi wall pain, two coats of white Levi ceiling paint, one trip to Ikea, a clock from San Marino, items from etsy, and we are nearing completion.

Some people have also asked about my current progress. For them, I have put together a short montage below:

My mum and Josef are spending four months in Europe, house-swapping their way across the continent. In July they spent two weeks in a farmhouse in Burgundy, and they invited us to join them for a long weekend. Adrian’s mum was staying with us, so we all hopped in a hire car and drove down through the countryside.

As we had the rare use of a car, we made sure to visit a few of the more isolated World Heritage places along the way – the Château royal de Fontainebleau, la Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine de Vézelay, and the Abbaye de Fontenay. However, the highlight for me was the Ferme du Château de Saint-Fargeau that I insisted that we stop and visit.

As soon as we walked through the door we were greeted by three hungry goats. I bent down to greet them and the white one promptly ate my map. I realised that it was best to return to reception and buy a bucket of feed. Returning with adequate supplies, they frantically ate out of my hands as if they hadn’t seen food for days. Adrian and I explored the farm further and found donkeys, piglets, calves, lambs, chicks, and ducklings to feed, then returned to the goats. They happily finished off the feed, with one little kid getting so enthusiastic that the bucket got stuck on her head until she managed to shake it off. The Ferme du Château de Saint-Fargeau may not have World Heritage status, but I still think it contributes to the common heritage of humanity.