Daniel In The Lions Den

I was going to title this entry Lions and Tigers and Bears oh my, but that would be a lie, there were no tigers or bears. If I'd called it Lions and Cheetahs and Giraffe and Meerkat and Porcupine and Hyena and Zebra oh my that would have been more accurate but a little lengthy.

None the less that pretty much sums up what I did on my first day off in two weeks and it was great fun. We travelled to a small safari park on the outskirts of the city where we were invited to 'Touch-A-Cub' signs everywhere, even encouraging children to do it, it's a bit wrong isn't it! But how cute they are - they were so docile in the midday sun and really weren't bothered by our presence and 'touching' at all. We also got to pet a Giraffe but it's not the same as a lion, I mean it's neck is much longer for a start.

I finally got myself to a match as well, Argentina v Mexico, and it was a goody in the wake of England's dismal performance. What I particularly liked about it was the fans, lively and loud, but openly wanting to enjoy it with their oppositions. Seeing fans from two different teams take pictures together is something I think would never be seen in English football. The seats were excellent, just 10 rows from the pitch right on the central line thingy and it was also great to see footballing legend Maradonna strutting around and flashing a picture of his 1986 squad - much to the joy of onlooking fans!

The workload has finally stepped down from bonkers to manageable and I have to say some of the editors here are producing absolutely sublime stuff, I'm quite envious, but it's good to be in their company and glean a little knowledge from them. A team bonding night out bowling certainly helped ail some of the cabin fever that has been setting in of late and given the poor performance on my first round everyone was quite surprised when I doubled my score to come third in the second.

But this is where I'm at at the moment. Counting down the days!