The Anteater House

We soon found ourselves at the Anteater House; Wilson took a deep breath, composed himself for a moment and we entered… into total blackness!

After a couple of minutes our eyes started to adjust, and we could just make out a huge glass-fronted enclosure almost filling the room; inside, a pair of eyes peered back at us.

Wilson pressed himself against the glass and called, 'Hello?'

'You'll have to shout — he can't hear you through the glass,' a small, heavily-accented voice replied. Wilson crouched down and traced the voice to an armadillo on the floor. 

W then shouted, 'Hello? Is there anyone there?'

'¡Hola! ¡No vemos muchas de su clase aquí!'

'He says "Hello"' the armadillo translated.

Wilson glanced at me for a second, then shouted,'What's your name? What is it like here?'

The figure in the darkness replied, and the armadillo translated, '"My name is Barios! It's good here — the servants are good, we have Cable TV in Spanish, and there are many, many ants!"'

Wilson then asked the armadillo why it was so dark, and he said, 'The servants have decided everyone in here is nocturnal. We must get used to it, I suppose. We all carry little torches bought from the Gift Shop, and they help.'

Zoo Time!

The smell had pretty much worn off by the time we arrived at the zoo. Or perhaps my nose had just been stunned into numbness by it, because we got a lot of funny looks from other people in the queue to buy tickets.

Once inside Wilson lost no time in consulting his little map to see where the Anteaters lived. 

We headed straight there, not even pausing in the Restaurant or Gift Shop, which is very unusual for W…

A strange miasma descends…

I didn't have a great night last night — just after I'd dropped off Wilson decided he and his lads would like a bedtime story. They all spent a long time trying to wake me up, while I spent an equally long time pretending to still be asleep. 

Eventually, though, guilt got the better of me; I roused myself and staggered out of bed, only to find W, Antony and TT all sound asleep. 

I spent the rest of the night blaming myself for being a Bad Dad… 

Over a splendid breakfast, Wilson confessed that he'd been very tired last night. 'Yes,' I agree, 'you were as tired as a newt!'

Following a quick freshen-up in our room, we set off for the zoo, but there was a strange, overpowering smell in the car. I can only describe it as a mixture of Brut and Hai Karate, but much stronger. Perhaps it's one of Wilson's less successful Air Freshener experiments, although he said he couldn't smell anything.

We completed the trip with all the windows wound down...

Wilson gets very 'tired'

As I suspected, after a three-course meal with wine and a couple of gins, Wilson was 'too tired' to walk home and insisted on being carried. 

He was sound asleep throughout the walk back to the hotel and for the climb up to our room, and when I laid him gently on the bed I hoped he'd sleep peacefully until morning. He was woken, however, by plaintive (though muffled) calls of 'Are we nearly there yet?' coming from the brown paper bag.

He immediately sat bolt upright, grabbed the bag and tipped its contents out onto the bed — revealing Antony and TT, both looking quite fractious. 

I'm not sure that sugar is the best thing to give to over-excited soft toys, but W handed them a stick of rock, saying it would calm them down. 

The point of putting them in the brown paper bag in the first place had been to calm them down, but I suppose we could hardly have left them there until morning…

Dinner

There were many cafés, restaurants and pubs to choose from, and Wilson decided he'd like to eat at this lovely old cottage. 

Over dinner, once he'd finished re-arranging his cutlery, we discussed where we should go tomorrow; I wanted to show him The Needles, where there's a lighthouse, a boat trip, some wartime tunnels and a rocket-testing base. 

W, however, was keen to visit Amazon World Zoo Park, because they've got some anteaters there he wants to meet. 

We're going to the zoo park...

Another Best Shop Ever…

Just a few doors down the road from "The Rock Shop" we came across "Jingle Bells," an all-year Xmas shop. 

I will confess I've never seen the point of these; I have at no time felt the need to go Xmas Shopping in August — it's bad enough doing it in December!

Wilson, though — like most children a huge Xmas Enthusiast — declared that this was The Best Shop Ever!

'Does this mean "The Rock Shop" is no longer the best shop ever?' I asked him.

'Oh no,' he replied brightly, 'they're both the Best Shop In The World Ever... which makes Shanklin The Best Village In The World Ever!'

He inserted a claw in his ear, wiggled it around and withdrew a small ant, which he regarded thoughtfully, before adding, 'If we moved here, to Wight Island, I could get a Saturday Job here! My earnings would help with the housekeeping.'

'I think you'd spend all your earnings, on Rock and Xmas Stuff!' I answered, as he popped the ant into his mouth.

"The Best Shop Ever!"

We walked from the hotel into the pretty village of Shanklin — it only took ten minutes or so, but I've a feeling Wilson will want to be carried back! — and the very first shop we came across was "The Rock Shop." 

It was filled with Shanklin Rock of every imaginable flavour (except, as it turned out, Ant flavour) and all manner of other sweets and candy. 

We spent a long time in there, Wilson rooting through the displays and sniffing everything while I repeated to him the (pointless) mantra, 'You'll be having your dinner in a minute, so don't eat too much!'

Wilson declared that this was, without a shadow of doubt, the Best Shop Ever! 

He left with a huge bag of rock and other sweets, and a promise from me that we could visit the shop again before we leave.