We all go to the zoo

Took Shark, Tiger and Squirrel to Linton Zoo, in Cambridgeshire. We track down a snow leopard, black panther, hornbill, lemurs, owls, spiders and two zebras, which is not bad going in the pouring rain and mud. While we are there, Mil, mum to Izzy, rests against the fence and says laughingly to the girls, What did you do at school today? And then she supplies the answer, We fed pink blossom to a baby tapir! and for a moment, the tears stop and I laugh.

I could of course recall the misery of the ridiculously long journey to get there, the constant rain lashing against the windscreen on the potholed country roads without signposts, the inexplicable trust I place in the SatNav woman on the single track lane, the relief and panic I feel when we get there, seconds past the workshop we're booked into, the frustration of the inevitable fight between Tiger and Shark, inches above the watching red legged tortoise, the pain of Squirrel weeping, the sudden panic when the lion runs towards Tiger and in my mind pops the absurd thought Is the fence tall enough? as my heart jumps and I leap in front of her, then the freezing hail, the irritation of another low-level education talk ('Have you ever heard the word extinction?') and the constant arguments all the way home before a fight breaks out on the lawn just before bedtime and it looks like the Wars of the Roses all over again.

But I won't think of that. Because today at school we fed pink blossoms to the baby tapir.