I'm not sure what I expected from the Scottish Fishery Museum. I'm just back from 2 days in Fife and me and my girlfriend needed something to do so we went there. Even with 2 children's activities sheets and a cabinet with something labelled 'Sextant' it was a pretty boring museum as far as museums go. They tried hard but at the end of the day the subject matter is fishery. Its always going to struggle.
We still had the rest of the day left as the museum only took up 20 minutes of our time (as well as £10 from my wallet) so we headed to St.Andrews Aquarium and Meerkat Emporium. Not its official name but its an aquarium with meerkats so it fits.
I'll point out blogger is telling me I'm spelling meerkat wrong. I have tried googling it and it appears to be right. Maybe meerkats are too modern to be recognised by spellcheckers like when you type in iphone or pokemon. We know they pre-date the Lion King at least so they can't be that new.
But I digress.
We headed through Fife, Aile my girlfriend flicking through the pamphlet (pamphlet? really? pamflet shirly?) half excitedly. It was just after Crail Aile announced we had to turn the car around as new for 2012 the St Andrews aquarium and meerkat emporium had a carpet python.
Aile has Slitherphobia which means she has a fear of snakes. I assured her without knowing at all the carpet python would be an optional exhibit. How scary could a carpet python be anyway, it sounds vaguely rude to me.
Let me show you my python. Let me show you my carpet python. Which of those 2 sounds ruder to you?
We arrived just in time for the seal feeding. I felt sorry for all the fish we rushed past to catch it. I imagine all the fish in the tanks hearing people at the ticket office and arranging themselves into different positions around their tanks ready for visitors, big smiles on their faces. I almost felt the catfish's grin disappear from its face as we passed.
Seals are great. Like fat people but cuter and underwater. The man came out with a bucket of fish and they got all excited and swam around waiting for the jolly oirish guy to stop talking to us about 'what a seal is' and to feed them fish. What caused me and Aile a lot of amusement was the seagulls that swooped down into the enclosure next to where the fish were being given out as if almost disguising themselves as seals in the hope of getting fed too. We saw a seagull land right in front of the guy and look up with an expression of 'yeah I'm a seal, what of it?'
Upstairs to the meerkat talk next. Oirish came in fresh from the seals and talked about them while they savagely yanked the tub of tomatoes and grubs out his hands. Meerkats are adorable and no matter how much the man talked about them pissing on each other for identification or watching them attack one another with their bitey little faces, I still wanted to give one a cuddle.
We saw the neglected fish then came the time for Aile to face her fear. There he was- the carpet python...lying motionless in his tree. A big well done to her for looking at it, it was definitely a snake behaving snake like so it took guts to do.
We just had time to see a French family yank a star fish out of a rock pool and we stroked a couple of turtles before exiting through the penguinless gift shop. I know the aquarium didn't have penguins but they're water related and its always an easy gift for Aile.
St Andrews aquarium and meerkat emporium is actually pretty good. If you're ever in Fife and aren't that excited about the many types of clothes fishermen used to wear it's a great way to spend an hour.
I prefer seeing fish swimming in tanks for my amusement rather than finding out how they're caught.
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