Chester Zoo. It’s 10 minutes away from my house on a push bike, yet I hadn’t been there since I was a wee bairn, on a school trip from St. Wilfrid’s High School in Blackburn. I remember holding hands with a girl I had a crush on during the coach trip back from the zoo. Twelve years old I was and I didn’t dare utter a word to her again after that. School trip fond memories. The smells of the souvenir Zoo pencil’s and leather bookmarks, eating our packed lunches on the sun-baked lawns, the punch of humidity as we entered in the steamy crocodile’s lair.

Although I am blown away by the wildlife photography of Martin Bailey and Nick Brandt, it’s not something I really feel drawn towards in any way, but an enforced stint indoors, a poorly landscape lens, oh yer, and the timely arrival of a bling new zoom lens I have been saving my pocket money up for months to buy, made a visit to the animals seem a very appealing lunch break. I should have gone back a lot sooner – it’s a fantastic resource to have on the doorstep and seeing the levels the zoo are going to in conserving endangered species is remarkable. Sod it, in fact I am going to buy a season pass.