Tag: Animals

Cat Lounge

Cat Lounge

by leeandpea ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

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Cat Lounge in Smithfield, Dublin is Ireland’s first cat cafe. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a cat cafe, these are spaces where cats and kittens freely roam the space, playing, licking themselves and looking aloof. Humans are permitted only if they abide by certain rules, and beverages are available. At Cat Lounge Dublin, children under 10 years old generally are not permitted. However, occasional special sessions for under 10’s have been introduced, and I was damned if I wasn’t taking Pea along to one of them.

Our visit

The Under 10’s sessions start at 10.30am as this is a time when the resident kitties are at their most playful and active. When we arrived for the session the duty ‘Cat Slave’ asked us to read through the house rules before going inside to meet the kitties. In essence – you are not Donald Trumpy, do not grab a pussy. No feeding them human food either or forcing them to sit still for a selfie. The cats determine how much or how little they want to interact with you.

I was so excited about this session that I booked it as soon as I heard about it (a previous session had sold out and I could’ve cried). Almost as soon as I’d booked and paid for it I started to worry about how Pea would be with the cats and if he was really too young for this sort of thing. His only consistent experience with cats is with my mother’s cat the super fluffy, ageing and docile Myrtle. She endures his fumbling petting with a sort of resigned tolerance. I am desperately broody for a feline fur baby though so I thought this would be a nice way of getting Pea used to cats and how to treat them.

He was fine. Absolutely fine with the cats. Initially mildly curious, then mostly indifferent to their presence and only really interested in playing with their toys. There was one incident where he handled a teeny kitten more vigorously than I would have liked and on a few occasions, I had to coax him away from infiltrating the Cats Only Zone.  Otherwise all was okay. Perhaps because of his general indifference towards them, the cats seemed to like Pea and it was mostly relaxing for me too, just sitting with Pea and letting the cats and kittens slink around us. The cats are wonderful, my absolute favourite being Frodo – he was lively and playful and his paws! He has an extra digit, a thumb, basically. All of the cats are adorable but Frodo was a bit special.

img_7648The fabulous Frodo

Essential info

Cat Lounge is at 1 Haymarket Square, Smithfield Dublin 7. Sessions cost EUR 15. For further under 10’s sessions, check the Cat Lounge Facebook page. Tea, coffee and hot chocolate are available from a self-service machine at no extra charge. Access is step free and there’s space in the hallway to store a buggy but it is limited.

*Since drafting this post, Cat Lounge have unfortunately announced they will be closing in August this year*. 

Trinity College Zoological Museum

Trinity College Zoological Museum

by leeandpea ♥ 3 Comments

img_79871The Zoological Museum at Trinity College is Ireland’s oldest museum. It’s open to the public in the summer months only and staffed by students from Trinity’s zoology school. Specimens on show include Prince Tom, the ‘Royal’ elephant, the jaws of a Great White Shark and Ireland’s last Great Auk. The Google reviews for this place suggested that there was some kind of interactive element and that was enough to convince me that this would be an appropriate place to take a rambunctious 18-month-old.

Our visit

We combined this with a return visit to the Science Gallery for the new exhibition Life at the Edges. That was not really any more toddler appropriate than last time, but I brought in reinforcement in the form of Daddy Pea and Aunty Pea so it was all considerably more manageable on this occasion.

The Zoological Museum is on the first floor of the Zoology building. When you get to the first floor there’s a big colourful ‘I Visited the Zoological Museum’ banner so you know you are firmly in a nipper-friendly zone. Pea bounded up to a stuffed critter of some kind (a gazelle maybe?). One of the museum staff members came out and said it was fine for him to touch the gazelle, whose name is Dave. You know you’re in safe territory when the staff are so chilled out about toddlers groping the exhibits.

While I was paying for our tickets, Pea became quite enamoured by the museum mascot, a large stuffed toy giraffe. Very helpfully, he was given a smaller version and allowed to carry that around the museum. I’ll never know how many tantrums that simple act spared us, but I’m grateful.

Inside the museum, you can look at all sorts of ex-beasties behind glass. The first thing that caught our attention being the horseshoe crab. It’s displayed in a cabinet with scorpions and spiders which they’re more closely related to than actual crabs. One of the things I love about places like this is the encounters with all sorts of weird and wonderful critters. Fun fact for you – horseshoe crabs have blue blood.

We looked at badgers, sloths, armadillos and an anteater (I rather liked him) amongst other creatures. Pea really couldn’t have cared less about any of this, he was just happy running around cuddling his giraffe and pressing his nose against the glass cabinets.

img_7972Hello Dave

The best thing about this museum is the handling collection. A long table in the middle of the main room includes a selection of items such as animal skins, fossilised bones, teeth, the jawbone of a guitarfish. Seriously, that’s a thing, I didn’t make it up. Visitors are encouraged to interact with these items and ask questions – nothing is labelled so you can try to guess what you are looking at. There are even some live creatures in tanks – I definitely spotted a very large snail – but we didn’t really interact with these. The staff struck a good balance between talking to us about some of the exhibits and just letting us do our own thing. As well as the handling collection, there was an activity table with a jigsaw puzzle to interest older kids.

I’m so glad we called in here as it was one of those rare activities that appeals to both me and Pea. I’m always interested in anything animal related (I mean, I prefer them cute and cuddly and alive as opposed to dead behind glass or slimy and in a tank but you can’t have everything) and for Pea, just being able to totter around and poke at things is all he needs. It’s tiny in comparison to the similar and better known National Museum – Natural History and nowhere near as slick but all the more charming for that. You can’t really touch up anything at the National. We will definitely try to fit in another visit before the end of the summer and I look forward to taking Pea back here each year when he’ll increasingly get more benefit from it.

Essential info

The Zoological Museum is at Trinity College, Dublin 2. Admission is EUR3 per adult, we weren’t charged for Pea. It’s open daily from 1st June to 31st August only from 10.00-16.00. There’s no step-free access so if visiting with a buggy-bound beastie of your own assistance may be needed. I didn’t spot loos, but the Science Gallery nearby does have toilets and baby change facilities if needed. There’s a cafe at the Science Gallery and there’s also The Perch cafe opposite the entrance to the Book of Kells.