Jookie the gorilla didn’t want to be in the zoo any more than we did

By Lorraine Candy for the Daily Mail
Updated: 04:09 EST, 3 June 2010

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As Editor-in-Chief of fashion magazine Elle and a mum to three young children, Lorraine Candy’s life is a chronic juggling act. In a weekly column, she reveals what life is really like for working mothers. Lorraine lives in North London with her husband James, an IT specialist.

The look on Jookie the Gorilla's face said it all. He didn't want to be in the zoo any more than we did. His eyes were filled with weary boredom. Tens of pairs of weary parental eyes stared back at him. Poor old Jookie, trapped in Gorilla Kingdom for ever. And poor old parents, trapped in an exhausting adventure of their own making, provoked into filling time by the half-term holidays.

There we were, wandering aimlessly around for five hours in the rain, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of the reclusive lion cubs and having to settle for comatose snakes and a glow-in-the-dark scorpion.

Uninspiring day out: Lorraine Candy took her children to the zoo to try and entertain them during half-term but they had more fun at home (file photo)

A day out so costly I may as well have bought them tickets for Richard Branson's first space flight (£140k a pop). That would be a real adventure, and no one would have had to shout repeatedly 'Where's the toddler?', as on the space flight he would doubt less be securely strapped in.

Lunch would have been cheaper, too, and we wouldn't have seen a sickly-looking mouse sitting beside the café just minutes after we'd finished our cold pizzas.

My children were delighted by this small rodent's guest queued to stroke a rat, but here in front of them in the café was a confused wild mouse.

And you didn't have to wash your hands after you'd seen it. 'That was unexpected,' said Gracie-in-the-middle cheerfully, her blue eyes alive with the kind of joy I had hoped to see earlier when she encountered the tigers.

After all, that's what's behind a trip to the zoo, isn't it? A manic expectation that your offspring will be wowed by all they see.

Most of the time, I was too distracted by the behaviour of other visitors even to notice the animals.

I watched a couple come close to divorce at the llama enclosure (something to do with someone forgetting nappies), siblings fighting like caged bears in the hour-long entrance queue, and tantrums that wouldn't be out of place on 'Super Nanny: The Extreme Version'. But very little spontaneous joy.

People came close to it in the butterfly tent, but if a butterfly doesn't bring a smile to your face, then what kind of a human being are you, anyway?

The day didn't get any better even when I spotted a Herman lookalike from the Guess Who game. (My eldest and I share a running joke of spotting Guess Who lookalikes: Herman is a spectacular spot as he has no hair and bright red eyebrows. You don't see many Hermans.)

Maybe it was the weather; or maybe the pressure to enjoy it was too much? I'm sure the zoo is a winner when it's less crowded, the sun's out, the mice are in and the penguins are frolicking. And it's probably better with one child rather than three, I suspect.

But for me, it was a lost day. Due to work, I could take only two days off this half-term holiday, so obviously I wanted maximum joy in those 48 hours, the funometer dial up to 11.

WHO KNEW?

Families who go on holiday during school half-term pay up to 80 per cent more for their break than if they go during term time

With our doomed trip to the zoo, I wasted one of my days driven by a sense that we have to entertain our children with an enforced adventure, when actually some Sellotape and a few lollipop sticks would have had the desired effect - as I found out the next day.

Trapped inside by the rain, it was a joyous day spent at home.

The morning got off to a jolly start when Mr Candy revealed one of his teachers had been called Miss Whipple. After the children finally s topped giggling around 11am, we finished every jigsaw in the toy box and put on a puppet show about volcanoes.

We used up enough Pritt Stick to supply a small nation. Ah, the joys of older motherhood-I would have been useless at any of this without a memory bank filled with Tony Hart and Rolf Harris tips. Cbeebies' Mister Maker is an amateur in comparison.

I was forgiven for cheating to bring an end to the world's longest game of children's Monopoly. And the toddler renamed me 'Mrs Darling'. What more could you ask for? No one ever calls me that at work.