Mini-Kolo's mini-break!!

You may remember that about thee years ago @leroy_sealion and his brother Henry went on a short visit to Sandwich in Kent, on the way to visit our grandma and grandpa in Deal.  Leroy and Henry thought it was an interesting place so we thought we would send Mini-Kolo back to investigate.

Mini-Kolo took the car ferry and then they drove all the way to Kent.  Which took a few hours and numerous stops for snacks at motorway services (truck stops)!!

When he got there he booked into the Bell Hotel in Sandwich.

Mini-Kolo was very happy with his view of the River Stour in Kent.  Then he tried out the bed to ensure it was suitable for him.

 Yes he was happy!  The Bell Hotel gets a very high baboon rating for the lovely staff, the food and everything about it, the breakfast is particularly recommended.  Mini-Kolo was particularly impressed with the advice they gave.

 

This notice was on the door.  For anyone who cannot quite read it it says that 'When leaving the room the door must be open'.  Mini-Kolo took this advice at all times.

 

I think the hotel people thought Mini-Kolo had rather more luggage than he had really taken with him.

 



Anyway, having booked in Mini-Kolo decided to explore the area.  As a baboon who lives on Baboon Island, he is quite used to hills, so the landscape of Kent came as a bit of a surprise to him.

He said it reminded him of the praries of Texas!!  Well he soon came to something else he wasn't expecting.

 Those of you who are interested in golf, and I know some of you are, will recognise the name of this golf course.  It is Royal St George's Golf Club.  That is where the British Open Golf Championship gets held sometimes.  We don't really understand golf but we know it is a links course, meaning it is by the sea.  Mini-Kolo knew that he could get to the sea by crossing the golf course so he found his way to Sandwich Bay.

In the evening Mini-Kolo was going to Deal, the next town to Sandwich, to see our grandma.  He also met up with rehomed baboon Russell.

We can see that Russell is very happy in his new home with our grandma.  The little chap with him is a lar gibbon from the Owl and Monkey Haven on Baboon Island.

They went out to dinner with grandma.  Mini-Kolo had a banana parfait with a peanut butter base.  It was yummy.  Just the sort of food that baboons like best!!

The next day, after a long walk, Mini-Kolo looked around the town to see the old buildings.  Sandwich is a mediaeval town so it has many beautiful old buildings.

 

 

This building puzzeled Mini-Kolo a bit, the sign says Sandwich Weavers, 1500.  Mini-Kolo knows that sandwiches are not woven now, so things must have changed since 1500.



Mini-Kolo had a lovely time with lots of walking and adventures.  He managed not to get knocked on the head by any golf balls  He got home tired but he had had a great time and seen lots of interestng things.  He represented his country well by wearing his England shirt during the world cup and he didn't let them down!!

May rehoming

I am pleased to say that the 97th baboon reached their new home this month.

Jim arrived at his new home on a different island not too far from mine, to live with our friend Fred @summerstormsum.  He took his introduction card with him.

Jim is a very lucky baboon, there was a whole wardrobe waiting for him when he arrived.

He is all set to be a very well dressed baboon and how clever of them to find clothes the right size for him.  I love that red waistcoat!!

On arrival Jim was given a glass of wine!!  He looks as though he can't believe his luck!! Cheeky baboon!

Wow he has clothes in all colours.  He even has his own pyjamas!!

and his own bed!!  We can see that he and Fred are getting to know eachother.

The next day they even went flying together.

I think Jim is very lucky!!  After flying it was time for tea!!

I think Jim has settled in for a very good life.  As well as that he has a new bear to keep him company, Gracie!  So he has Fred and Gracie as good new friends.

Fred also kindly sent me a new friend, Peter a lovely bear from his island.

Peter came with lots of lovely presents for us, a calendar, fridge magnets, wine gums and a lovely tea towel.  Thank you so much Fred.  I really love Peter.

He is settling in well and making good friends with outr other new bear, Jurgen from Cologne.  They have lots in common.

I am very lucky to have such great friends.  Jurgen came from @fuzziestFreya and @F_is_for_Fred!!

So 97 rehomed baboons!!  I wanted to rehome 100, but actually I have got five baboons here still looking for homes, one is spoken for but four remain so if anyone thinks that they would like a baboon or a companion for their baboon please let me know.  It looks as though I will be rehoming 102 baboons!!

FA Cup Final

I have been blogging so much about my wonderful trip to Cologne, that I haven't blogged about something else that was very important to me lately.  Yes, the FA cup final! It didn't start until 5 pm but our friends started gathering early.

I think Arsene would be proud of his red and white army of anipals.  Everyone had a kit, T-shirt, hat or at least a red nose.  There were even a couple of Cologne fans there to help get behind Lukaz Podolski.

 

Well it didn't start well.  By the end of 9 minutes Hull City had scored two goals.  We baboons felt sick.  We thought this was disaster.

 

Then Mr Cazorla stepped up a scored a great free kick, bringing the score to 2:1.  Then we felt we stood a chance.

 

Well that was minute 17 and we felt we needed to score another goal before half time to stand a chance.  However, we had to wait until the 71st minute before Mr Koscielny scored a second goal.  Phew!!  2:2!!  We had to have extra time.  This was getting stressful.  Baboon HQ was on a knife edge, should we put the pizzas in the oven or might it go to a penalty shoot-out??  We did put the pizzas in the oven.

 

That turned out to be a good decision because Mr Ramsey scored!!  We were finally ahead!!

 

 

Picture from the BBC.co.uk

 

Oh boy now we had to hold on for the final whistle.  Oh this was tense, we were holding our breath, would our pizzas be burned?

 

No, Hull didn't score again so Arsenal won!!!!!!!!!  No penalty shoot-out!!!!!!!!!!!!  We were happy, almost too happy to remember to take the pizzas out of the oven.

 

 

Picture from Arsenal.com

 

 

We watched the team celebrating.

 

 

Picture from Arsenal.com

 

Mr Wenger was happy!!

 

We would have loved to go to London the next day to see the victory parade but would never have got there in time.

 

Picture from Arsenal.com

 

Its been nine years since Arsenal won anything so we are very, very happy.  We still can't stop singing.  Lets hope for more to come.

Cologne part 3

Well, as I said in the last post, we got to the zoo.  In this post I will just show you an important bit of the zoo because there are other things I want to talk about, but I will blog about the zoo in the last part of this blog.

Here is a clue to what was special about Cologne zoo!  I found this chap near to the baboons!!  He is a baboon statue!!  Yes, the zoo has baboons!!

These are hamadryas baboons like Ryan at Baboon HQ and two rehomed baboons.  They were great and we chatted a lot.  They were not in cages they just had their own island with a moat around it.  Just like me they live on Baboon Island!!

Well more of the zoo next time.  We all went out to dinner that evening in one of the taverns near the waterfront.  We found a nice Italian resturant that did nice vegetarian dishes.

Here we all are, @F_is_for_Fred, @Bijntje, Bijntje's adopted baboon Ty, @LeroySealion, @fuzziestFreya and her adopted baboon Lukas and Mini Kolo.

 

Mini-Kolo soon got himself a pizza and it looks as though he has got beer there, really, well I must look into that!!



Well it seems pizza was not enough for Mini-Kolo, he and Lukas shared a rather large tiramasu!!  I believe Fred and Freya also shared one.  It was a lovely evening, chatting and eating and having fun with lovely friends.

 

Mini-Kolo was very excited about meeting up with the two rehomed baboons, Ty and Lukas.  Lukas wore his Arsenal shirt which made us very happy.  It was a great evening.

 

There is some discussion about Leroy and Freya but I don't know what that was about.  Leroy has been very quiet since then and he is scared that Freya's boyfriend @MonkeysBrother might turn up!!  I don't really think Leroy is ready for girlfriends.

 

The next morning whatever happened didn't spoil Leroy's appetite, he found somewhere interesting for breakfast.

 

 

That looks tasty!!  We were sorry that @Bijntje had left by then because we discovered that this cafe did Baileys truffles. 

 

After that we went out and about around Cologne sightseeing, we went on the cable car again, although it was rather windy.  We went back to Cafe Reichard and we had a look at this church.

 

 

 It is near the cathedral and the main station.

The next day everyone had to come home.  Fred and Freya helped us to find the airport again and we had coffee with them there at Starbucks.  Fred and Freya sent me a present.

Meet Jurgen (his name needs " on top of the u but I can't do that).  He loves Cologne and it says so on his hoodie.  He brought me some lovely Cologne chocolate.  Thank  you very much Freya and Fred.

Really, we all had a great time and thank you to Fred, Freya and Bijnte for making it such fun and for helping us to find our way around.  We loved spending time with you and we will be back.

Cologne part 2

On our second day in Cologne we woke up hungry and went off to find some breakfast.  Well we didn't know much about the town so we went to Starbucks!  If you are saying not very adventurous you are right, but on the other hand Starbucks gave us a view of a lovely square.

We enjoyed looking out at the early morning activities in the square.

After that we wandered round to the Dom (Cathedral), which was not far away to take a picture before all the crowds got there. It is a very beautiful cathedral with lots of intricate stone work.

After breakfast we wandered along the Rhine and found some nice taverns near our hotel.  We liked the name of this one.  See whether you can work out why!!

In the afternoon we met up with @fuzziestFreya and @F_is_for_Fred again and it was very exciting because @Bijntje came all the way from the Netherlands, by train, to join us.  We went to the chocolate museum.

I don't think any baboons, bears or humans on the trip would be honest if they said they weren't excited about this.  However, Mini-Kolo was more excited than most because he found banana split chocolate.

 

 

Leroy and Mini-Kolo did some shopping in the museum shop!!  Mini-Kolo managed to get some banana chocolate and Leroy got chilli chocolate, he developed a taste for that in Texas!!

 

After the museum @bijntje wanted to check out the Steiff bears.  We found some but Mini-Kolo and @bijntje soon upstaged them!!

Cheeky boys!!  I am not sure what the store detective thought about all this.

After that we had tea and cakes and then dinner all together in an Italian resturant in the town.

On the third day we all met up again and went on the cable car ride over the Rhine!! 

It was very high.  Look at the mechanism and then the views.

 



Its a great way to see Cologne.  The cable car got us to the zoo!!  Yes, the zoo.  We saw lots there, too much for this blog.  So read the next installment for our trip to the zoo, a special meal together, a baboon reunion and Leroy's special breakfast.

Thanks for reading so far!  Next installment asap!!

Cologne part 1

Last week we went to Cologne, in Germany they spell it differently but my keyboard doesn't have the " to put over the o to do it their way.  I did so many things, had such fun and took so many pictures that I think I will have to do this in at least two parts.

We had a very early flight so Mini-Kolo and Leroy left home the day before to stay at a hotel at Heathrow Airport.  They were very excited because they could see (and hear) all the planes taking off.

The Ibis Hotel in Bath Road gets a high baboon rating because the staff were very nice and there was a nice resturant.  Leroy and Mini-Kolo had fish and chips and there was a great breakfast, but we had to leave too early to have it.

Heathrow Terminal 1 was fun we had breakfast there and Mini-Kolo met a new friend.

OK Mini-Kolo is about 1/4 of my size but look at him compared to this guy!!  This chap would make even me feel small!  He was very friendly though and he is the doorman for the Harrods concession in the Terminal.

@fuzziestFreya and @F_is_for_Fred very kindly met us at the airport with rehomed baboon Lukas.  I am not sure we would have found the place without their kind help.  They took us to this very nice cafe, Cafe Reichard!!  It is really smart and nice and we all had pancakes.  The amazing things about this cafe is the cakes.  Look!!!!!! 

Of course it gets a high baboon rating.

It was still too early to check into our hotel so we all decided to go on a tour bus trip.

 

Mini-Kolo dashed upstairs to get the seat he wanted and then he was soon joined by Freya, Fred and Lukas.  I am not sure whether Leroy was asleep at that point.

We saw where former Cologne (now Arsenal) player, Lukaz Podolski (who Lukas Baboon is named after), has his apartment.  We got lots of great views of Cologne.

 

After that we were all tired and it was time to book into our hotel.  Hotel Maritim was very nice.

 

 

The boys found that if they looked out of the window at a certain angle they could see the Rhine.

 

 



The hotel was very exciting, there was a conference about kitchen things going on.

There was also a nice foyer and a swimming pool!!

Really the hotel was like a little town!!  It was very near to everything we wanted to see and do so it was great.  The staff were so helpful we could hardly believe how good they were.

There is lots more to tell you but this entry is getting quite long with too much reading.  The next day we also met @bijntje.  So I will blog again tomorrow and tell you more.  I might need to do three blogs for this exciting trip I think.