WINNERS OF THE MONKEY COMPETITION

We drew the competition this morning. Each entrant was allocated a number corresponding to the order in which the comments were received. I wish you all could have won it always hurts me that I can only give prizes to one or two winners.

We used the random number generator http://www.random.org/

I drew the first winner and number 17 came out and so the first winner is Marshall Sheldon.

My brother Yaya drew the second winnet and number 2 came out so the second winner is Huntyr.

I will DM both winners and I need to you to please visit
http://www.owlandmonkeyhaven.co.uk/in-safe-hands-adoption-packages-form.asp?package=Bronze

and choose your monkey, then DM me on Twitter to tell me what monkey you have chosen, how you want your name on the certificate and the address you want it sent to.

CONGRATULATIONS to both winners and I am sorry to the rest of you I really wish you could all win. You can adopt a monkey at the haven if you wish to by following the link above and I may do another competition in a while so watch this space.

Monkey Sanctuary Competition

WIN A MONKEY ADOPTION!

A new sanctuary has opened on my island for owls and monkeys. The owls are lovely but if I am honest its the monkeys that interest me!! I visited them in August and boy they were fun. So lively we could hardly get pictures of them and noisy! Wow you can believe the noise they make, so much fun! They were glad to see me.

To on find out more about them visit their website: http://www.owlandmonkeyhaven.co.uk/

or follow them on Twitter: @MonkeyHaven.

It is possible to adopt a monkey at the haven and this competition is about giving you the chance to win an adoption. You will be able to choose your own monkey and just look at the characters involved.

http://www.owlandmonkeyhaven.co.uk/in-safe-hands-adoption-packages-form.asp?package=Bronze

If you would like to enter the competition please either add a comment to this blog post or DM me on Twitter @Kolo_Martin

The competition will be drawn on Christmas Eve at 10 am GMT. There will be two winners, I will draw one and my brother Yaya will draw the other.

So come on every one and enter you know how much fun it would be to have a monkey of your own.

Please don't think that this means I am abandoning the donkey sanctuary I will also continue doing things with them.

Anipal Photo Hunt #16: My 2nd Job

This week's anipal photo hunt theme is my 2nd job. I am very happy cos I can do this one. I didn't do it last week cos I'm lucky enough not to have to go to the vet so noooo vet gonna fight this baboon and win (just saying)!!

Now my 2nd job I have several jobs and I'm not sure what order they come in so after my first job of being with my person and making sure they have something to do, is being a professional football fan. Arsenal mainly, then England (perhaps I should say sports cos at the moment I am massively supporting England's cricket team and hoping they win the Ashes). I also gvie my support to the Texas Longhorns (different type of football of course)!

Here I am in my Arsenal supporting outfit kit, very professional I'd say!


What else? Well then I look after the garden. Here I am pruning the fushias, yes I am allowed to use secateurs (even if I can't spell it). My person, however, would never be allowed to use such a dangerous tool, can you imagine the damage they could do!








As many of you know I am also a chef, not in Zack Rabbit's league but not a bad chef! I make cakes but mostly I make pizzas. Here I am with my world cup pizza ready to dish up. This one is red and white for England (its also useful for Arsenal celebrations too). Other friends made pizzas of their flags, Mookie (@Schnille) made a German flag pizza and, in the spirit of international relations (see I'm also a diplomat), I made a German flat pizza too after England had done their usual trick of being knocked out!

Well those are some of my jobs I am a multi-tasking baboon wouldn't you say!


So come on all of you now you have seen how much fun the anipal photo hunt is come and join in. Cokie has extended this one for two weeks so no excuses!

Anipal Photo Hunt #14: MOM

Well you all know by now that we do an anipal photo hunt every week so just come on and join in!! Do it now, don't put it off, you really know you want to.

This week's theme is Mom or as we uptight Brits say "mum". We it does matter what we call it the fact is I don't have one, no stuffed baboons do not have moms, mums or anything of the sort. However, I have got a person (well two acutally but I suppose the second person is really my person's person, confused, you should be) and that will have to do. Of well needless to say my person has got an attack of shyness now pictures are to be shown.

Here is my person very happy in an Arsenal shirt at Highbury. This is her when she is most happy watching the Gunners and this was during the season when they went unbeaten all season so it was very special.

Now this picture is a bit of a shocker, notice what she is wearing, a skirt, well I've never seen that before or since! What was that all about then?

So there you are now you have seen my person, not really my mum more my best friend but the closest I have to a mum so she will have to do. If you are ever looking out for her you are more likely to see her looking as she does in the first photo.

Anipal Photo Hunt #13: From where I stand

This week's anipal photo hunt theme is From where I stand.

Do join in come on you know you want to, click on the button to join us, its fun, you know you want to.









Well this was what I could see from where I stood on a rainy day. Its a nice view but boy was I sick of the rain.




This is what I can see from my window on a nice day. The water is the Solent which is part of the English Channel that separates my island from the mainland. The city you can see in the background is Portsmouth, a big naval city in the south of England, its only about 3 or 4 miles away from us and we get a good view of it.

The town you can see is Ryde where I live.

Anipal Photo Hunt #12: All Souls' Day

This week's theme is All Souls' Day which also makes us think of the Mexican day of the dead that we have heard about and saw an exhibition about once in Dallas, Texas. I love the idea of celebrating our dead loved ones anipal or human so this is great.

If you want to join in the anipal photo hunt please click on the button, its fun and you know you want to.

My problem this week is that I do not have a picture of the loved one I am thinking of. She died in the mid 1990's when we did not have any digital pictures and we cannot find any of our photos to scan in because they were lost when we moved. However we remember her well, she was my person's sister, so I guess my aunty in a way. Her name was Lizzie and she had bright red hair and she was a lawyer, she did very well to become a lawyer because, like my person, she did not do well at school and she was a kidney patient, eventually that is why she died so young. She worked hard to become a lawyer and she never really got to practice law but she was such fun and always laughing so we want to remember Elizabeth Martin (Lizzie), we always laugh when we think or talk about her but we do miss her lots.

This picture is not of her but it reminds us of her because she and my person used to go there on Sundays and walk around and eat dinner and have a lot of fun. It is Covent Garden in London and it was one of her favourite places.

Sorry to have talked so long in this blog entry. We miss our Lizzie and we are glad to tell you about her. A couple of weeks ago my person had a lovely afternoon in Covent Garden and it made her happy to have been there again.

Making rock cakes

We are having visitors for the weekend and I know they like rock cakes so I thought we would make some. Rock cakes are a very British cake so for those of you who don't know about them they are nicer than the sound. My friend Zack Rabbit tells me that Harry Potter is very fond of them. This is interesting because the recipe we use calls them Old Harry Rock cakes. We do make some changes to that recipe though. My new young brother Yaya is helping me cook for the first time so I will have to tell him what to do.






The first thing is to get the ingredients ready, you need:

8 oz of self-raising flour
4 oz of butter
4 oz of demerara sugar
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of allspice
4 oz of mixed dried fruit
Grated rind of one lemon
1 large egg
2 tablespoons of milk (more if the mixture is too dry).






Right we have got all those ingredients so we need to weigh them out. I was showing Yaya the scales and the weights he was very interested in them.

Turn the oven on to 190 C, 375 F or gas mark 5.

Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles find breadcrumbs and stir in the spices, sugar, dried fruit, grated lemon rind, egg and milk and then stir the mixture until it resembles crumbly dough, you may need to add a little more milk but make sure you do not make the mixture too wet.

Now for the fun bit that baboons like me with big paws like best, Yaya will find it more difficult because his paws are very small. Gently squeeze and roll the mixture into about 12 small balls and put them on a tray that has been lightly greased with butter or margerine.

Put the buns in the oven.







Now here is tricky. The recipe says to leave them for 20 mins and we did that for years and it worked very well. However, recently we accidently took them out after 15 mins and they were a much nicer texture and more tasty. So really I think you might need to experiment with cooking times as all ovens are different. See what suits you and your oven.

When you take them out of the oven let them rest on the tray for 5 mins you have been doing all the work but the buns need a rest. Work that out for yourselves I can't figure it out it myself.





After 5 mins put them on a cooling rack, we put a tea towel on to stop them sticking to the rack or getting squres all over their bottoms!

I had to explain to Yaya that they are still very hot and not yet ready for eating.






Finally, make yourself a nice cup of tea or coffee, put your feet up and eat a warm rock cake. You deserve it. Well I say finally, at some point there is a lot of washing up to do, I explained to Yaya that the washing is the job of the under chef. He thought I meant him, obviously I meant our person.

Football pals

Most people who know me know that I support Arsenal and that I live in a household of crazy Arsenal supporing friends. This is fun of course but recently I have had even more fun supporting Arsenal because some of my Twitter friends @marshallsheldon, @OllyTed, @Tweetypie54 @ShanyaCat, to name but a few (there are too many to list them all), have started supporting Arsenal as well and watching the games and some of our friends who support other teams such as @Schnille (Cologne/Koln), @MonkeysBrother (Burnley) @marleyterrier (the real Manchester team) and @WallasEKatt (Liverpool) are joining in the fun.

Of course we all enjoyed the world cup together supporting our own national teams, and now it is wonderful to carry that on with Arsenal and a few other teams.

It is wonderful to see Olly in his Arsenal kit and MarshallSheldon with an Arsenal shield on his Twitter avatar and what could be better than the fact that @Tweetypie54 is called Gunner he is named to support Arsenal isn't he. Olly turns up for games with cakes and banana chips how wonderful. @Leroy_Sealion and I are just so happy that you have all adopted our team, already this season we have celebrated large victories, commiserated over losses and kicked the furniture when we have drawn and you have all stuck with it. It is wonderful after the game to go on Twitter and talk about the game with friends who have all learned so much about the Gunners in such a short time and have such passion.

I am so glad you like the team that means so much to me and thank you to all of you for adding to the fun of supporting Arsenal. I haven't been to the stadium yet this season but I feel as though I have because of having friends to chat with during and after the games.

Most of all GOOOOOO GUNNERS! Let's win something and make all your fans even prouder and happier than they already are and give us an excuse for a red and white pizza party!

Anipal Photo Hunt #11: Trick or Treat

The subject of this week's photo hunt is Trick or Treat. Oh dear this is not really the image of myself that I want to portray. Last year my person made me up to be a pumpkin patch and here I am pumpkins and all. My friend Batty thought that it was a good opportunity to get in the on the trick or treat act so here we are. Oh dear I'll never be able to show my face again!

Come on y'all join in the photo hunt you know you want to its fun and the more people who do it the better.



Click the button for more information.

Anipal Photo Hunt #10: How annoying

Well I'm not a baboon who gets annoyed easily but something annoying did happen to me recently. My new brother appeared in the house. Look at him he is there all the time, he is another male baboon in the house, he even dresses like me how annoying!!

Well it was annoying to start with but actually I really like him now he is good fun and younger brothers have their uses (see last week's entry for an example). So things may be annoying but they often work out OK in the end.

So friends meet my brother he is quite good fun and not nearly as annoying as he used to be.

This week's anipal photo hunt theme is How annoying. Do join in its so much fun doing the photo hunt, see

for more details, go on you know you want to!!

Anipal Photo Hunt #9: Compromising Positions

Ah this week's theme for the anipal photo hunt is compromising positions! Oh yes my brother and I did get caught in a compromising position recently.

To find out more about the anipal photo hunt click here





Join in have a go its fun!!

OK so what are we doing, well as you can see my brother is opening the freezer door, I am giving him a hand up there. So what are we doing, well you probably guessed. Yes we are looking for ice cream.

Not only did we get caught in the compromising position and get into touble but would you believe it there wasn't even any ice cream in there, frozen peas, frozen sweetcorn, but no ice cream, booooo!!!! Its a good system though we can use it again in the future.

Anipal Photo Hunt #8: I'm with the band

This week's anipal photo hunt's subject is I'm with the band.

To find out more about anipal photo hunt and to join in see http://www.anipalphotohunt.com/

Eversince we heard some singing gibbons were arriving in the island monkey sanctuary we have been wondering why gibbons sing and not baboons!

So am I with the band, no actually I'm not my brother and I are the band here we are laying down some sounds using our netbook and listening to the feedback through our headphones. We are a really cool band see the adoring fans behind us! See how excited they are too see us!

So we are da band. We are the singing baboons, watch out singing gibbons you have competition! Wouldn't say no to a collaboration sometime though! Call us!

Anipal Photo Hunt #7: Hey! That's not me!

This week's anipal photo hunt is all about look alikes that are not us. Usually baboons are pictured unpacking people's cars in the safari park but everyone knows that is not me, but what about these look alikes they are having a good time so maybe I wish it was me but they aren't me.

To find out more about anipal photo hunt visit http://www.anipalphotohunt.com/








Yay this baboon knows his sauces he is checking out New Orleans hot sauce oh wow I would love to be him there in New Orleans but no, he is not me!
















Can you imagine how much I wish this baboon was me, England shirt, riding on the back of a motorbike you would have thought it was me wouldn't you, oh what a pity that baboon is having so much fun, but its not me!

Anipal Photo Hunt #6: Adopt a less adoptable pet week challenge

For more information about Anipal Photo Hunt see: http://www.anipalphotohunt.com/

This week's photo hunt is about adopting unadoptable animals and I just wanted to remind everyone that if you cannot have a pet at home or you already have all the pets you can accommodate, there are other ways to adopt unadoptable animals.

Here I am at the donkey sanctuary. The donkey that is about to eat my tail couldn't be adopted and taken home with anyone she would need different care than most of us can provide other than those who live on farms. She is 45 years old and has arthritis, she moves very slowly but she is very friendly and can be adopted like other donkeys at the sanctuary. The sanctuary look after the animal but if you find one locally enough to where you live you can always visit them. On my tiny island there are at least five places where you can adopt animals that are unadoptable, the donkey sanctuary, the Amazon Adventure which has a variety of animals. A monkey and owl sanctuary where you can adopt some very fun guys, a zoo and a flamingo park with penguins to adopt. So most of you must have somewhere near by.

So for those of us who live in places where we cannot adopt animals to take home remember there is another way of adopting animals and helping them, the adoption fees help to feed and care for the animals including housing and vets fees and most organisations will keep you up to date with your animal's progress.

So remember there is more than on way to adopt an unadoptable animal and help them and their friends to have a more comfortable life.

Anipal Photo Hunt #5: Blog Paws

Sadly I couldn't go to Blog Paws cut I do blog at the desk here at home just like that with all my Arsenal memorabelia around me to inspire me.

My typing is getting better you can see the blur where my fingers are moving.



Join in with the anipal photo hunt.

http://anipalphotohunt.blogspot.com/2010/09/anipal-photo-hunt-5-blog-paws.html

Anipal Photo Hunt #4: My Bed

The week the anipal photo hunt is all about bed. Well how could I resist that. Acutally my favourite place to sleep is not in my bed its on the sofa in front of the television:

There is nothing better that having a nap on the sofa on a Saturday afternoon and I showed Lippe how it was done when he visited, pure pleasure.

See http://www.anipalphotohunt.com/ for more information about anipal photo hunt and to join in.

Anipal Photo Hunt #3 - My favourite toy

Well this one got me thinking cos I don't really have many toys. Obviously somebody needs to do something about that don't they. Here are the things I treasure and like to play with.


Well obviously there is Arty my armadillo who came from the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas I love him he probably doesn't actually consider himself to be a toy though. I won't break it to him if you won't.

Oh Texas again here is my Texas snow storm I love to shake that and see the snow falling, it is quite a magnificent object don't you think!







This isn't really a toy but Daffy made me a lovely fridge magnet of me which I love and treasure so I thought I would include that.

Ah yes and the train lets hope they never notice it has gone and ask for it back we have been having so much fun with that.

I guess I can't complain about not having many toys I've got some cool clothes and some nice things to play with, a football would be nice though!

Kolo's Island

As you all know I live on an island off the south coast of England its not really called Kolo's Island its called the Isle of Wight. Many of you have asked me to show you pictures so here goes. These are not in any particular order but they are some of our favourite places. I hope you enjoy the pictures some of you may recognise some of the places that Lippe visited.




This is Ventnor it is a resort on the south coast of the island and is said to have the best weather in Britain. It is quite continental in appearance.






This is the longstone, it is very historic and I don't think we really know just how old it is, but it is very spiritual when you go there.

This is St Catherine's lighthouse on the southern tip of the island it is very beautiful .

Oh now how many of you have seen one of these? Most of England and the US have grey squirrels but our island is one of the few places that still has red ones. They are very secretive and you are very lucky if you see one of them.

This is the steam railway that I have been on with HenryandFriends and MrsFiddlesticks and Tim_Kirby it was fun.

Price Albert built Osbourne House for Queen Victoria as a country/seaside home. After he died she came and lived there for the rest of her life.

This is Newtown town hall, isn't it tiny, it is Georgian and it is not in use any more but it is a beautiful building in a beautiful village.

This is Newport the capital of the island. It is mainly Georgian with some Victorian buildings.

The Needles are a very famous landmark on the island they used to be joined to the island and some people believe they were joined to the mainland at Old Harry Rocks near Bournemouth.

The landslip is exciting there used to be lots of smuggling of brandy and tobacco there. The land slipped away in the 18th century and its a very beautiful place and quite exciting with unusual plants.

This is the best way to get to the island on the hovercraft it is the only passenger hovercraft in the world now and hovercraft are built on the island for the Canadian coast guard and Singapore police.

Godshill is very historic with a lovely little church on top of the hill. They say the people were building the church at the bottom of the hill but the stones kept being moved up the hill during the night, so they believed that god wanted the church on top of the hill and they built it there, that is why it is called Godshill.

Freshwater is very beautiful, the poet Tennyson lived there for a few years, his house is still there it is a hotel now. He used to walk on the downs there and he said "the air on the downs is worth a penny a pint".

Cowes is famous for Cowes Week yaht races, this is the Royal Yaht Squadron where the races are started using these cannon.

Carrisbrook Castle is fun if you like climbing onto the ramparts and looking over the island. King Charles I was imprisoned there before he was taken to Whitehall in London to be executed.

This is Bembridge Mill it is no longer used and you can visit in and go inside. It is in a field in a lovely part of the island.