you have never been in love until you have seen the dawn rise behind the home for the blind

 

So I turned 16 on Friday. Sixteen. That sounds big. It's like a kind of big sweater that I just don't quite fit into yet. I was actually incredibly apprehensive about the whole thing...however I had such an amazing time that I soon forgot completely about the number and just enjoyed being the centre of attention for a day. I took loads of photos over Halloween and my birthday however they're all quite different and there's too many for one post, so I'm going to kind of group them into several separate posts over this week. These photographs are from our trip to London Zoo...I know, why the hell would you go to a zoo on your birthday?! It's a bit weird I know, but I wanted to spend the day being all nostalgic before meeting up with the family and the zoo just seemed like a good idea.

 

I wore my shoes from Rokit, skirt from Beyond Retro, shirt from Blitz and socks and jumper (a present from my parents) from Urban Outfitters. I also decided to live the blogging life and lug five cameras around with me all day...because that's totally normal right?

 

These are all from the butterfly house, which is basically an enclosed tunnel that is really humid and full of butterflies flying around. It's really humid and so my camera lens kept steaming up, hence the slightly dreamy quality to these pictures. I apologise for the plant spam.

 

I've always been really into animal protection and London Zoo fully incorporates the issue into their work. As much as being a tourist attraction, the zoo is famous for it's conservation work and tries hard to enlighten visitors about the plight of the animals on show and their environment. They also encourage them to try and do their part to help fight the battle against extinction and global warming, by either donating money, sponsoring an animal, or just cutting co2 emissions. The idea of so many animals just simply ceasing to exist horrifies me, and so it's lovely to see others trying to do something about it. It also brings the zoo up to date - with such rapidly increasing availability to mass media, we no longer need zoos in our modern society to be able to learn about and see animals from other countries. We could quite easily just watch 'blue planet', instead of trekking all the way to the aquarium on the southbank to see a sting ray or clown fish. However, London Zoo have adapted to become an information and conservation centre, so that instead of being merely a showcase of exotic animals, they are a place where on-going work is helping to preserve biodiversity for the years and generations to come.
Anyway, I apologise for the quick post...I am getting my disposables from Halloween and my birthday developed in the next few days, and so better posts are on the way (I know I say this every time).
Have a lovely week,
ellie xo