We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo

The weather was gorgeous, not too warm, not too cold, bright, sunny - perfect for HG's first visit to the zoo.

She fell asleep during the car ride to Jerusalem, so her first 45 minutes or so in the zoo were spent peacefully oblivious to her surroundings, as Ima, Bubbe and Zayde pushed her buggy around the lake filled with waterfowl, the Latin American enclosure and the Australian enclosure.

Jerusalem's biblical zoo is beautifully landscaped, sprawling across a hillside - even without the animals it makes a lovely park.

She awoke approaching the Hai Bar section which includes native deer, antelope and gazelle, some of which are being returned to the wild as part of a conservation project. They are housed in an open area with a walkway over the top for visitors. HG's first reaction was hunger, so she nursed on a bench overlooking Persian fallow deer and Arabian oryx. Satisfied but still drowsy she finally noticed her surroundings, staring fixedly at the black and white antelope before noticing the giraffes - including three babies. She didn't seem to be sure what to make of them, but stared around curiously at all the new sights.

She finally got into the swing of things in the tropical bird section - a huge humid greenhouse full of rainforest plants and birds, with a flowing waterfall and pond at its centre, complete with turtles and alligators. It was the waterfall which got her attention, and she spent quite some time staring at it fixedly, before noticing a bird flit by in a flash of bright red.

Much of the time she just seemed to be absorbing the new place with its very different sights and smells. At the elephant yard she seemed more interested in the boldy lettered sign announcing that these giants were a gift from the Thai government than in the elephants themselves. True to form, HG will always go for text over almost anything else.

The chimps were close enough to the front of their enclosure and active enough to also catch her attention, a huge family of them complete with tiny babies were having a family fight, defending their territory from a naive pair of mallard ducks who thought they had happened upon a nice place to set down for the afternoon...

Back to more native animals and this time it was the leopard, staring right at the visitors filing passed his enclosure, which attraced HG. He lay unmoving on a branch, his penetrating gaze and bold colouring transfixing HG for quite a while.

HG's absolute favourite though seemed to be the parrots and macaws. Big, brightly coloured and noisy, they entertained her, delighting her with their antics and bringing a broad grin to her face, rather than just an intent, curious stare. She reacted to the noise first, pricking up her ears (well, metaphorically anyway) upon hearing the raucous racket.

It was a very long day out for HG, several hours of schlepping through the spacious zoo grounds, and overall she behaved very well.

On the way home the family stopped for a late lunch/early dinner at the nearby Malha shopping mall. Ima ordered for HG, who seemed very happy to have her own plate of ante-pasti - in other words, soft, gently grilled veggies that were easy to cut into finger food for HG, who of late has often been refusing to eat food from a spoon (even when she holds it), prefering to feed herself with her fingers. She ate a generous helping of courgette, aubergine, her first ever potato and garlic, as well as soft chunks of onion from Ima's soup.

She very much enjoyed the cafe located in the middle of the mall, looking around her, crawling and exploring the polished parquet flooring (a rare surface for her) and so it seemed, feeling like a big girl.