Gillian Alexandra

A patient Kookaburra in the bird walkthrough One of our my favourite things to do is to visit zoos and wildlife centres, and one of my favourites in Scotland has to be the wonderful Five Sisters Zoo which is situated just outside Polbeth, West Calder. They look after over 190 species of animals, birds and reptiles, some of which have been rescued from horrible circumstances. Lions and Tigers* and Bears (Oh My!) *Ok just lions and bears The zoo acquired two 3 year old bears 🐻🐻 (Henk and Eso) on 5 May 2018 from the International Animal Rescue Centre – Natuurhulpcentrum in Belgium who had rescued them from a terrible existence as an "attraction" at a roadside restaurant in Albania. The bears are thought to be victims of illegal poaching and taken from the wild after their mother was killed, sold to the tourist trade and somehow ended up at the restaurant in a cage that was far too small for them, where the only water they had were from puddles of rainwater ...

Since I mentioned in the description that Shaun and I are engaged, I thought I would make my first post a bit personal and tell the story of how it happened. (Sick buckets at the ready!) It happened back in December 2017, the 2nd to be exact. The day before, we had travelled to Paris because we were going to Disneyland for the weekend. We almost didn't make it because we were stuck in a traffic jam for hours but thankfully it was cleared and we made our flight in time! I was really looking forward to a long weekend away, and it was just going to be the two of us. Or so I thought... 😂 Surprise #1 We got to our hotel, the Radisson Blu , and Shaun went to check in, making sure I sat away from the front desk with the cases, which I thought was a bit odd at the time but it all makes sense now!  All checked in, we went up to our room and it was then that Shaun told me he'd paid extra to upgrade us! What a lovely surprise 😊 Our room was lovely and they provided ...