Dublin and No 30. Elephants!

Another looooong post....sorrry again!
As you know I love to tat animals...well I love animals! so inspiration is always useful.
Remember when I posted about my trip to Belfast and the zoo in Feb..well it was time for another meeting of the research committee and this time it was held in Dublin Zoo.

One of the advantages of getting old...er in Ireland (bet you didn't think there could possibly be any!!) is that everyone gets a Travel Pass when they reach seniority and can travel FREE by bus or train anywhere in the island of Ireland..south and north. Is that cool or what!

Well hubby just got his and I can travel free with him, the world is our oyster ...well Ireland anyway! and sooooh we went up to Dublin by train twice in one week!! to the Bloom garden and Flower show (our Chelsea!) which was fabulous, the weather was just like summer!

Two days later we were on the train again but the weather couldn't have been more different....it rained constantly till 5pm when it stopped for a short while only to start again.

I had not been to Dublin Zoo for about 20 years since we took the Brownies on an outing and it's changed a lot.

Dublin zoo is the third oldest zoo in Europe having started in 1831 in the Phoenix Park and was a typical Victorian Zoo of caged animals.

First stop was the new Meercat Restaurant I had been dying to see. It has a viewing area at one end. I was hoping to see the meercat on watch duty stretched up to his full height but the group were obviously not under any pressure and so he was only watching half heartedly.



A walk outside in the rain....interesting to see the renovation of an old Victorian animal house was in progress. Hope you can read this if you click on it. It must have been a wonderful spectacle for visitors who didn't get to travel to see animals much or watch them on television. How things have changed.








Moving on...what about this for a headdress inspiration for tatting.



or this Rodrigues Fruit bats eating a piece of fruit, not much like my tatted bats.



But the bit that I liked the most was the new elephant area. Elephants need access to water to keep cool in the summer and this area has two pools, don't they look inviting?



You can see the rain.
I liked the walkway to the elephant area from the restoration house complete with elephant footprints in the concrete. The whole zoo complex is a pleasure to see just for the landscaping and planting.




Even an elephant playground.



I didn't think the elephants would be out in the rain but they were. It was good to see how big an area they have to live in. I had ro zoom in on this photo a lot to be able to see them they were so far away.
Modern zoos can be wonderful and the three Irish ones have great conservation policies. Their breeding programmes often returning animals to the wild. They each specialise in breeding certain animals.




The latest baby elephant to be born in the zoo last february is in that group.
the zoo held a competition for to find a name for it and an 11 year old boy won with the name Budi which means wise one. Hope the video link still works, there may be an advert first.

What I didn't see at the zoo was the main attraction of the day bit I didn't know, it was the first appearance of the new baby white rhino, born just the week before. She looks fabulous and is the first rhino to be born in 14 years. Hubby did get to see it after his meeting. Do take a look at the video link..hope it's still active..the baby is so cute. Guess there will be another competition to name it.

I wanted to able to show you some photos of Dublin City but the rain got worse and worse..the sort of rain when cars sent water shooting up at you as you wait to cross the road, and every one jumps back.

The best I can do is Molly Molone wheeling her barrow, am sure you all know the song. Maybe more next time I go.



Well you have waited patiently for some tatting, I promised you elephants and here they are.

First up was Jane Eborall's elephant.



This cute elephant I think looks more like a Woolly Mammoth and I am tempted to tat it again in a earthy brown which would be perfect.

Next was Inga Madsen's elephant and I just love this one for it's realism and that's what I am looking for. I did give it a tusk as it seemed naked without one!



Now a pair of elephants. I changed the pattern slightly so that I could have two different elephants and added tusks to both. The front one is my version, still not happy with my trunk. Wanted to make it thinner and more curving up without doing major changes to someone else's pattern.



The elephants were all tatted in Coats Red Heart 20 (tats like a 15) which is just about ok once you learn to master the twist in the thread. It was the best colour that I had. Jane's measures 10cm/4.5in wide and Inga's 12cm.5in

You will be hearing more about elephants..no don't groan..but first I need to dye some thread so that I can tat a green elephant!!