Zooropa

Amongst bundles of discarded wrapping paper, turkey leftovers and bags under the eyes during our trip home I also made my first ever visit to Colchester Zoo, re-discovered some old London stomping grounds and had a couple of cracking pub lunches.

Colchester Zoo was much bigger than I imagined. Our friends had suggested a 4-hour visit and as we drove up there in the drizzly rain I truly wondered what an earth we were going to do for 3 of those hours.

But I should have feared not as we comfortably strolled it’s 60 acres during 3 hours and still left some for another day, although there were a fair amount of exhibits that had migrated for the winter. There are apparently over 260 different species and they are laid out in numerous zones where you can get pretty close to the animals.

There are also a pleasing amount of areas that kids can let off steam when they are bored of staring at the Orangutan plus there was a steady flow of feeding times and a 13th century church, which was a nice historic diversion although I am at a loss to explain why a church was in a zoo.

On New Year’s Day we drove into town and meandered around Marylebone High Street in the rain, which was a great excuse to look at things I can’t have in the Conran Shop and drink coffee and eat cakes that were a thing of beauty in Patisserie Valerie.

In a list that is probably shrinking after almost 9 years of being away from ‘home’, a good old country pub is still very much near the top of ‘Things I really miss about England.” So I was very happy to visit four good ones on our Christmas trip.

There was of course the Red Lion in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, then when back in the smoke my brother took us for a nice spot of lunch in The Prince Arthur (picture) in London Fields. The fish cake with a poached egg on top was delightful.

Following that after Christmas out in the wilds of Essex on New Year’s Day we were at The Bull in Great Totham. This restored 16th Century coaching inn is known for it’s food and although it was good, it did come a long second to the superb lazy lunch we had with some friends at the George and Dragon in Mountnessing. My choice of the braised rabbit papperdelle got some disparaging looks from the veggie other half, but it was to die for.