Baby Boom!

Hello again,
Sorry as usual for massive delays in news and updates in any form, life is busy as per usual. Summer is upon us now and much thanks to my acclimatisation while travelling, for once I am enjoying the hot weather and sunshine. A lot can be said for living outside. Most people seem surprised when they first lean of my trailer-living habits in the countryside, and develop automatically, ideas that I live in poverty or in less than ideal conditions. Fair, I have no hot running water in my 'house' and we are not plumbed in (you trot acorss the road within the zoo to use the shower or loo in a communal toilet block), and our heating is certainly basic, but I tell you what, I can't think of a better existence for the soul. I love the simplicity of it, and how much closer you feel to nature and the earth, when so much of your daily life depends, or is certainly influenced by things such as weather conditions. You learn skills and resilliance, and what could be better than having regular barbecues on the warm evenings to eat your dinner off? And eating breakfast and lunch outside every day! Our views are fantastic, and when the weather is warm enough, after work we can swim in the polar bear pool (once the bears have gone to bed), or walk down the hill and jump off the bridge into the lakes below. Pretty alright, I think. There's something terribly romantic and old fashined about it all. The moons we see are fantastic. It's amazing the difference it makes when the night is a clear one, you can see your way to the toilet! When it is cloudy or there is no moon, you can't see your hand in front of your face. Of course it can be harshand horrid too, namely in the winter months, frozen pipes (i.e. no running water), freezing cold days and nights, the electric meter running out in the middle of the night, difficulty drying clothes, very chlostrophobic, leaks, etc. But you've gotta roll with the punches, eh? And I suppose everything has it's price, and it's certainly character building!

So anyway, the news! With the spring and summer come the babies. We have a new camel (as yet unnamed). His mum is Kalish, my favourite, and the one who put me in hospital after a racing accident a couple of years ago, as some of you may remember. The calf is beautiful- very pale grey with completely white legs and a big white splodge on one side of his belly. Apologies for sideways picture. Also on the farm theres a baby lemur, named Guiness. Very cool, looks just like a gremlin. Two of the mandril babboons are expecting, and there's pheasent chicks and a cygnet, too. In the reptile room we've had some eggs from the bullsnakes, and some from either the cornsnake or pueblan milksnake- possibly hybrid, it's all a bit of a mystery and we won't know until they hatch (if they hatch- 3 out of 12 look viable) and we can guess what happenned, so fingers crossed for that lot and I'll keep you posted. The western diamondback rattlesnakes have been mating, but it's too early to tell if the female is gravid or not yet. They have live birth so that could be very exciting. Have included a pic of them copulating, because so many people ask my about the technicalities of how snakes do this, so now I can show you...

We've been doing some really exciting big film jobs, so look out for the following....
- Hot Fuzz - A film by all the Shaun of the Dead crew, heavily featuring Elvis, our male swan.
- The Golden Era - Film starring Clive Owen and Cate Blanchett, featuring Zuli the zebra, Alfie and Doug the squirrel monkeys and Kevin and Sunshine, two massive burmese pythons.
- (don't know the name yet) - starring Michelle Phiefer, featuring our wolves (we had to train them to bite and attack one of the girls!) , porcupines, raccoons, lemurs, mandrills, hyena and alligator. Thats being filmed over the next 3 weeks and we've done a lot of prep work for that one, training the wolves and helping out the model making team with measurements and photos of the alligator for a model of a dead one's belly. We had to draw round their feet and measure every bit of her body fo it!!

Other new stuff... I have a new snake (pictured above, next to a match stick, for scale)!! Not new to the reptile room, but new to me personally. She was a present from a new friend of mine named Chris, who's just opened up his own reptile shop just outside of oxford, called The Pythons Lair. So the snake- she's a baby african egg-eating snake, and as her name suggests, she only eats eggs! Problem is, she's so small (being about 2 months old at the moment) she can only eat finch eggs (although she took a budgerigar egg the other week!!), which aren't that easy to get hold of. So today before I get the train home (have been visiting Cambridge this weekend as Flossy ferret had an important operation to remove a diseased adrenal gland and some cancer on her pancreas- she's thankfully making a good recovery, and my walled is £250 lighter), I'm going to pick myself up some finches for DIY eggs!! So here is a picture of Meg 'the egg' scoffing her first ever egg. On the left is Carrot, my cornsnake. See how she is using her coils to help hold the egg in place and shove it in her mouth- I can honestly say it is the most amazing spectacle!

And now a quick news flash of everything else thats been going on in the world of Grace...

Spent the day in London with my dad and visited the Natural History museum, my favourite attraction in London. I am totally in love with the building and its architecture. The place is incredible and has an awesome atmosphere, here is the giant hallway (sideways) and the diplodocuse skeleton that lives there. That night I went out to Fabric for my friend Tommy's birthday to see DJ Yoda, Scratch Perverts, Krafty Kuts and other fab DJ acts and it was a really brilliant night out. Didn't get back to Tommy's flat until around 7.30 the next morning. Ouch.

Fyf and I spent a weekend in London visiting our friend Emma who we met on the truck in South Africa. It was her brothers birthday so we went along and gatecrashed his party, and of course had a wonderful time.

Last weekend I went along to the Anglia Ruskin University masquarade May ball in Cambridge (all the may balls are held in June nowadays- something to do with neighbours complaining about all the noise and disruption of the ongoing celebrations from all the different unis or something) with my sister Daisy, our mate Tilly and old school friend Irene, and Nathan, all of whom attend the university. It was pretty good fun, but my excitement about the chocolate fountain lead to me wearing quite a lot of it down my nice dress!!

Daisy and me (check out the home-made mask!!!)

Hey Irene, nice face!!

Me and Dais in our dresses. Not sure what she's doing though!

Tilly and the chocolate fountain

Daisy's mate Dom, looking like some kind of ancient warrior in her mask of peacock feathers I made.

Also last weekend visited the Sedgwick museum in Cambridge with my lifelong buddy, Beth, who's doing a bid art project about the extinct giant Irish elk. We spent the morning taking photos with the skeletons looking like the antlers were coming out of her head! No fun pictures I'm afraid, but will try and add a link to her website so you can see what she's doing, as it's certainly worth a look.

Teaching a penguin to go down a slide for a commercial (pictured, Charlie at the bottom, Ferrari at the top) this week... (check the look of concentration on Fyf's face! This is a very serious business!!!)

Charlie making a splash!

A few snaps I took at Paddington -my favourite of the London stations- on thursday night on my way to Cambridge this weekend... Fantastic atmosphere, the sights, sounds, smells, I love it!

Right, so for now, that's all folks!

X Beijos!! X