So I have finally turned 60. I retired at 55 - well almost 56 ... but have had to wait until now to be officially retired and claim my work pension ... and it was lovely to see it go into my bank at midnight!
We have had a very special celebration for my birthday and it has lasted 3 days so far! Please feel free to switch off now or be prepared to be inundated with photos of glorious beautiful big cats.
Nigel and I have a deep and abiding love of all things feline, our little babies at home and all of the other cats large and small in the world. We were blessed to visit what is now The Big Cat Sanctuary in 2007 and 2009 for photography days where we had a chance to take great photof the gorgeous cats. The sanctuary has grown and grown and developed and is now a gorgeous place to spend time. The director, Giles Clark (who we first met in 1995 when we had the chance to cuddle and interect with Bruno the tiger) has also been on TV hand rearing tiger cubs Spot and Stripe and the Cheetah Willow and the Jaguar Maya. They have all been ambassadors for the sanctuary and helped them to raise money for their own development and also to help other organisations across the world. They do amazing work and I was proud to have raised £125 for them with my birthday donations on Facebook (thank you to all of the wonderful family and friends who donated) Anyway, I digress. we went to the Big Cat Sanctuary to do one of their overnight big Cat safari stays and it was unbelievably good.
You stay in one of their lodges for the night. I was expecting something basic and rustic - a glorified beach hut. I could not have been more wrong. It was high end perfection and, considering we were not sure if we would be able to go due to COVID, it was just so special. We arrived at 2 pm and were shown to our beautiful lodge and I was doubly thrilled to be in LION lodge since lions are my favourite of all.
This was us just as we were leaving home - still 59 at this point!
This is the beautiful area where the lodges are
It was all decorated with bunting and balloons for a birthday girl
Once we had settled in we had afternoon tea in the conservatory overlooking the lions
Then we did our first two hour tour of the cats and you are able to get up close and personal (The second day photos are better so stick with it people! )
When we visited in 2007 and 2009 the star attraction was the triplet lions Kafara, Manzi and Tiny. Sadly Manzi passed away earlier this year but we loved seeing Kafara and Tiny
and we also visited another lion, not related, Kasanga
We met smaller cats like Petra (who we had met before) the Lynx
Jua and his Mum Samia the Servals (and he climbed the fence just like our Fiki)
This is Narnia
We were thrilled to meet Willow - one of the stars of the Tv programme Big Cats in the House. She had been injured at 5 months old and went to live in the house with Giles and Maya the Jaguar and is a superb ambassador for the park and for Cheetahs
We fed the tigers their vitamin supplements
and finally our last visit of this tour was the snow leopards - Mum, Dad and their two sons
Back to the lodge for a Pims before dinner
Then it was cocktails and dinner in the company of the lions
and back to our glorious lodge for the night where we slept to the sound of lions roaring (magical noise)
I took this bit of video just for the sound - and yes - we heard this through the night. Just perfect and wonderful We were laughing as the two brothers were roaring in turn getting shorter and faster each time. It was so funny.
The end of a perfect day and you are going to LOVE the photos tomorrow I promise.
What am I thankful for
- 60 wonderful years
- a perfect birthday celebration
- cats - all of them
- Nigel making my day/ my year/ my life perfect
How splendid! I cannot imagine anything more exciting---and you didn't even have to go to Africa! The grounds look beautiful. I was wondering if the cats would "talk" throughout the night. It would keep me awake all night, because I'd be so excited, I wouldn't want to miss a sound! :-)
I'm sure it must have been that way for Nigel and you.
Posted by: Barb in AK | July 25, 2020 at 09:12 AM