A night at the zoo!

The National Zoo and Aquarium in Canberra has been around since the early eighties and they have offered overnight stays at Jamala Wildlife Lodge for about ten years. I'd always wanted to spend a night at the zoo and was very lucky to stay there on Sunday night as a birthday treat. The package included lunch, tours, dinner, accommodation and breakfast. It was a spectacular experience. Here are some pics ...

Light lunch on arrival

And from the self-guided Sunday afternoon tour:

Our luxurious room, which had a lemur enclosure on one side and an expansive view of lion habitat on the other:

Lemur-viewing window

Yawning, snuggling lemurs!

Dinner:

Assorted canapes

Madagascan vegetable and tofu curry with coconut rice

Creme brulee

Mischka the white lion snoozed next to the room where we ate dinner and was still slumbering there when we reconvened for breakfast the next morning :-)

Breakfast:

Vego eggs benedict

We expected to be in a group for our guided tour on Monday morning but the other participants didn't show so Andrew and I received a very personalised tour with our knowledgeable guide, Lucy. Some highlights:

We were allowed to pat the rhino!

We had access to our room for one more hour between finishing the walking tour and checking out ...

... which meant we could watch our lemur friends enjoy breakfast

Such am amazing experience. Delightful and delicious and educational.

In search of flavour

When I studied psychology back in the 1990s one of our units explored cognition and one subset of that was taste. Specifically, we learned that there were five core taste elements: sweet, salt, bitter, sour and umami. Beyond those are flavours, detected by combining our senses of taste and smell, helping us to distinguish between foods. 

It's Day 7 of my COVID-19 experience and these theoretical concepts are coming to life. I can't really smell anything and accordingly have lost the ability to enjoy flavours, though I can still sense which of the taste elements are present. A piece of Persian Love Cake tastes blandly sweet but I can't detect the nutmeg and cardamom. A serve of nachos tastes salty (and my lips tingle from the chilli) but the spicy kick is wasted on me. Pickles are vinegary and lemon butter is sour but neither taste like their usual selves. This is weird … hoping things improve soon.

Nurturing brain and body

Occasionally we hear sad stories about people who retire one day then die the next, or count down till retirement only to find it unsatisfying and boring. I'm trying to be strategic about my transition to retirement … gradually reducing the amount of paid work I do while increasing voluntary and leisure activities. 

In 2006 I dropped from five work days to four (taking a 20% pay cut; this was long before current ideas of four-day weeks) and took up two volunteer jobs. In 2012 I started doing some freelance work on the side of my day job, and in 2018 I left the day job to make freelancing my main activity. Self-employment can be a bit of a roller coaster, time-wise, and some weeks I'd work 30+ hours; other weeks it was fewer than ten. Early on, I felt compelled to accept most work I was offered in case the offers dried up. Over the past couple of years I haven't needed to do that; I have enough work (and enough income) to support myself so can afford to slow down and smell the roses.

Not my roses. One of our neighbours has a great collection though!

Anyway, it's been fun. Life, these days, features gardening, volunteering, socialising, exercise (boot camp, barre classes and cycling), a community orchestra, random lectures and webinars, and still some paid work. And while I exercise, cook and do housework, I listen to podcasts. They fill gaps in my brain! I didn't always pay attention in school, or take notice of momentous world events happening around me in the seventies and eighties, so am grateful to a whole flock of podcasters for letting me know what I missed. A few current favourites:

Global Roaming – current world affairs with Geraldine Doogue and Hamish Macdonald

Empire – how empires have shaped the world, with William Dalrymple and Anita Anand

Legacy – stories of influential people, with Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch

Cautionary Tales – mistakes and what we can learn from them, with Tim Harford

Radio Atlantic – stories and conversations with various hosts

Lady Killers – Lucy Worsley explores historical crimes by women

7am – stories in the news

Full Story – stories in the news

The Waves – news stories from a gender perspective

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to buy myself a coffee. And listen to a podcast on the way :-)

Sri Lanka was delightful!

Sri Lanka had been at the top of my bucket list since I was seven. It was the mid 1970s and, while living in a grim, grey little town in New Zealand, I started corresponding with a penpal in Colombo. Sri Lanka sounded like everything New Zealand was not: colourful, spicy, exciting. The country remained a fascination for the next few decades and I started making plans to visit several years ago. The COVID-19 pandemic and an economic crisis meant that I booked, then rebooked, then rebooked the trip, but it finally went ahead last month. And it was fabulous!

I went on a 16-day bus tour organised by Bunnik Tours, who specialise in small-group touring. Everything about the trip met my needs. The staff were excellent, the tour group (14 people including me) nice, the food AMAZING, the scenery and archaeology and wildlife beautiful and fascinating. Just wanted to post a few pics from the adventure …

Lord Howe Island

Andrew and I visited Lord Howe Island, for the first time (hopefully not the last), in early October. What a wonderful little slice of paradise. We walked, climbed, ate, drank, watched birds, snorkelled and learned about the island and its history. There are approximately seven restaurants on the island, which may be why travel agents recommend a seven-night stay! We were supposed to stay for seven nights but ended up with an unscheduled 24 hours in Sydney at the start of the trip as it was too windy on the island for the plane to fly. Never mind. We found things to do in Sydney and thoroughly enjoyed our six nights on Lord Howe Island. I won't waffle on, but here are some pics:

A gorgeous and peaceful getaway.