Beatrix pottering: Taking a Panda to the Zoo

Kevin left early on Saturday to get to Port de Pollença for his power-boating course, so Jemima and I were up and out fairly early too. Our destination, after collecting the Fiat Panda I'd hired for the weekend: Natura Parc, an animal sanctuary/ zoo about half an hour away.

We had an easy drive through the agricultural centre, tomato poly-tunnels and all (a very common sight in much of Spain, but we hadn't seen any yet in Mallorca). And then we arrived, at the same time as about forty other people, at Natura Parc.

It turned out they were all together on mass outing, so Jemima and I took advantage of their group inertia to skip past and get into the Parc first. We scuttled down a pretty, shady, tree-lined pathway, and then took our bearings.

It was all very charming. Lovely landscaping surrounded lots of waterfowl enclosures, each focussing on different parts of the world: a huge variety of ducks; flamingoes; and even enormous pelicans with three foot long (worrying sharp) beaks, who I swear were bigger than Jemima. There were also lots of very glossy-looking cockerels wandering free, looking as they owned the place.

Then as we kept wandering (it was a maze, I soon gave up on the map), we found more delights: porcupines all huddled in their hut looking like a spiky mound; an adorable armadillo; large bird cages with canaries, parrots and owls; a bat cave, where you could see them flying around in a dimly lit room the other side of glass; tortoises and turtles; little wallabies sunning themselves; a section with traditional Mallorcan farm buildings containing a horse, sheep and a cow; and a row of stalls with Pygmy goats, including one so newborn we watched it stand up for the first time; and more guinea pigs than I've ever seen (or perhaps want to see) in one place.

Jemima's favourite was the meerkats, who were extremely cute as always. And my favourite was the lemurs: we were allowed to go into their large enclosure, and got amazingly close to them, with more perched just overhead. "They look like they're meditating" Jemima said - and they did, sitting upright with their hands resting on their knees, eyes closed as they basked in the sun. It was adorable, and very human. (And one of them wee'd from above on the young, rather well-groomed keeper, which was very funny - he was not impressed...)

After this my phone battery ran out, which was actually a mercy. Because then we got to the bigger animals. I know they say they're a rescue centre, but I really did feel sorry for the lioness and tiger: their enclosures just didn't look big enough. Although the single ostrich and single zebra did fare better, with a large paddock for the two of them. You don't know the back-stories, maybe where they were rescued from was worse; but with huge, magnificent big cats like that, I did think they deserved something a bit better.

By this time we were hungry, so with some false starts and going round in circles, I eventually led us to the café where we had a very nice panini each, sitting in a patch of sunshine on their verandah (it was fresh in the shade, but the sun felt warm, which was lovely). And then trip over, it was back via Palma for a bit of shopping.

I'd had a washing disaster that week: I'd unaccountably shrunk two of Kevin's very nice jumpers. So Jemima and I were off to Hugo Boss in Palma to replace them. It turned out the shop I'd googled was actually a section of El Corte Inglés, the big Spanish department store; so after some successful jumper purchasing in Menswear we had a little explore. As a result, Jemima decided to spend her pocket money on a toy on the Kids' floor rather than another trip to Claire's Accessories, and I bought her a new jumper too; and then we had a detour to the hat section. This was a lot of fun: we spent about fifteen minutes trying on various styles and laughing at ourselves in the mirror: Jemima in a fuschia pink wedding fascinator in the bizarre shape of a headband was quite a sight. I got myself something a little more discreet, and then it was back to the car and home to meet Daddy. (I was very proud of myself, I managed to find my way into Palma, park, and get home again, all without a sat nav - I'm finally learning my way around...)

Kevin had had a good day on his course, if pretty chilly on the water, and he was pleased with his new jumpers. So we celebrated with dinner in Chameli's. "I want pork knuckle" said Jemima, but that was from the menú del día, so she had to content herself with sharing our steaks. We walked back home in the dusk, all tired and full but happy.