Of Penguins and Gulls

 Meet the swaabie.

One of Miss M's passions is Playmobil, and one of her presents this Christmas was the their Penguin Habitat, which includes penguins, penguin chicks, people, a bucket of fish, eggs, a bale of straw (we're not sure why - Miss M has decided it's to keep the eggs warm when the adult penguins can't be bothered) and a curious gull.  I love the gull - it has brilliant moulded wings. They could have just made it smooth-bodied but they gave it wings and, somehow, personality. We had a lot of fun setting the figures up and taking pictures, then Miss M sat playing with it for ages.

I find penguins hugely entertaining and fascinating and used to love watching Edinburgh Zoo's Penguin Cam until they got the pandas and it changed to dull-sleepy-panda-cam. I've just had a look though and they seem to have re-introduced Penguin Cam - apologies to Edinburgh Zoo if they did that ages ago, I just haven't checked for a while. So I'm not sure why when it comes to a toy penguin set that it's the very ordinary gull that I find so amusing.

The Playmobil penguins can slide down a chute into their pool, which you can fill with water and therefore get a satisfying splash. And the cats can drink from it of course. Because water from a dripping tap, a newly-drained bath or a toy penguin pool obviously tastes better than water from something as mundane as a cat-bowl.  That's basic cat psychology for you.