The build up was huge. All week, I’d been singing ‘Daddy’s taking you to the Zoo tomorrow’ to smallest boy. He’d heard it so often he was starting to learn the words and, on Friday evening, I told him he’d need to get lots of sleep because of all the animals we’d be seeing and all the stuff we’d be doing the next day.

So on Saturday, we set out early. A trip of about 65 miles to Chester Zoo. We arrived at 10.30 raring to go. There was even a dinosaur exhibition on offer – imagine the excitement!

We got out of the car end entered the zoo. And spent the next six hours peering at bored, sleepy animals, hidden as far away from the viewing platforms as it was possible for them to get. It was more like the Chelsea Flower Show (Savannah section) than a zoo. Cage after cage of trees and shrubs, with the occasional flick of an ear somewhere in the far distant corner. Occasionally, there’d be wild, slightly hysterical cries of enthusiasm as an over-anxious parent tried to make the most of when a baby orangutan, suspended in a cargo net seventy feet above our heads, scratched himself.

Meanwhile, small boy had got it sussed. He was almost exclusively interested in a small plastic Dinosaur toy and the games on the mobile phones we had with us. Regardless of the number of times he was encouraged/ordered to admire the small brown mammal sunning itself in thick shrubbery 120 feet away, the thrall of the £3.00 purchase reigned supreme.

But I recognise that Zoos have a problem. They used to be designed for us to look at animals, so they featured big animals in small bare cages. But now the moral tide has shifted and they’re forced to become Conservation zones with a moral role in the world – to be the guardians and ensure the survival of species threatened by extinction. In terms of the entertainment value of zoos I have no problem with this, but the consequence is that zoos must use cage designs that attempt to emulate the natural habitat of the

animals they contain, and in their natural habitat you’re probably unlikely to ever see, for example, a Tiger until you get a close up of it as it lands on you. But we can’t feed people to Tigers anymore, so all you get is the habitat without the creature.

But sod it, I’m a hopeless romantic – who’s up for West Midlands Safari Park?

My eldest son needs alot of reminding to do something. He’s easily distracted: television, lego, toys, soldiers, his younger brother, the cat, staring into space…

So most mornings we have to remind him to do things, like:

Get up
Get up
Get dressed
Have a wash
Go to the toilet
Get dressed
Have a wash
Make your bed
Eat your breakfast
Eat your breakfast
Eat your breakfast
Have a wash
Brush your teeth
Brush your teeth
Get your shoes on
Get your bag
Get your shoes on
Get your bag
Put yout coat on
Get your bag
Get in the car
Get your bag
Get in the car
Put your seatbelt on
Shut the door
Put your seatbelt on
etc

But the big problem is, he gets quite upset when we remind him – getting into an awful tiz saying: “No, don’t say it. Oh, you’ve ruined it now!.”

He’s obviously got it into his head he’s going to do these things, some time today, and we’ve ruined his little plan by reminding him.

We’re totally perplexed. Suggestions on a postcard, please.

So I’m back in Brussells, staying in one of the hotels they’ve built for visitors to the capital of all that is European, and I’m hungry. Normally, I would go downstairs to the hotel restaurant, expecting the usual gourmet hotel fare, but because this is out of season I appear to be the only person occupying a room.

I hit the streets, in search of food and drink.

“Mmm” thinks I, “I fancy a Pizza”. Turning into a street, avoiding eye contact with l’EuroProstitute, I notice a plethora of Pizza restaurants. Excellent. But I’m hungry, which is really a problem for me, as I get completely preoccupied with eating anything at all as fast as possible. In other words, I lose the ability to distinguish between lovely, gorgeous food that will remain in your memory for ever, and disgusting rank food that will remain in your intestines for one night that will, probably, feel like forever.

But I am who I am, so I go into the first Pizza place I come to. Ignoring the sneering Italianesque mafioso on the door, I proceed into what I can only assume is a giant cigarette. Everything is thick with Carcinogens. The wallpaper, where it hasn’t smouldered into defeat, is nicotine brown, the carpet is nicotine brown, and the voice of my waiter is – you’ve guessed it – nicotine brown.

But I am hungry. So I sit and look at the menu. Taking no more than 3 seconds I order a vegetable Pizza and a Coke. What is returned to me is a limp giant cracker that tastes of salt and cigarettes, despite it’s being covered with partially melted cheese and oddly crushed vegetables.I ate the Pizza, drank the Coke and left.

So if you’re meeting someone you don’t like, who is a strict vegetarian, anti Italian, altruistic non smoker, I can recommend a restaurant. Let me know if you want the address.

Pete Kendal