National Seal Sanctuary 3-7 December 2008

Strictly speaking, not travelling with Jennifer Susan at all - she stayed at home while Mark went to look after seals at the National Seal Centre at Gweek in Cornwall. http://www.sealsanctuary.co.uk/corn1.html

Mark stayed in Penzance at the Carnson House Hotel.
http://www.penzance.co.uk/carnson-house/

This entailed an early start each morning for the 35 minute drive to the Seal Sanctuary to feed the pups at 7.45am. Fortunately the landlord, Rob, offered to produce tea, toast and cereals at 7am even though breakfast wasn't officially till 7.30am. Mind you, it helps if you're the only guest!

The morning routine started with preparing the food for the 11am feed. This involved thawing out sinkfuls of herring and mackerel and dividing them into buckets in accordance with wallcharts to ensure every adult received the correct amount.

Then the paddocks had to be cleaned - a job reserved for volunteers on the grounds that the ponies, goats and sheep don't bite - unlike the seals. Health and safety - the perfect excuse for the (literally) shitty jobs to be allocated.

Morning feed for the pups in the convalescence pool involves throwing the fish into the pool while crouching low to hide from their line of sight. The theory is that this will avoid the pups associating people with being fed after they are released. Instead they believe that fish fall out of the sky. I'm not convinced and neither were they. We kept score of who throw the most fish into the fence around the enclosure instead of into the pool. Mark was a clear winner most days.

The daily routine also included a lot of cleaning. If not washing the blood out of the buckets after the feeding, it was hosing down and scrubbing the pools, which were emptied twice weekly in rotation for the purpose. The trick with this is not to let the seals creep up behind you to give you a playful bite. Or to roll on top of the hose and cut off the water supply.

You also spend a lot of time getting in and out of umpteen different pairs of wellies as you go from one seal to another in the hospital - even more in the isolation unit. And then you have to wriggle in and out of waterproofs before entering each pen, scrubbing them down before taking them off and going to the next one. Not discounting the pulling on and off of surgeon's gloves. All of which aims to avoid passing infections from seal to seal or from seal to human or vice versa. It also amused the girls who staff the hospital as Mark struggled into and out of kit designed to fit them - i.e. petite - rather than him.

Mark's task after all this performance was normally to take temperatures. Not pleasant if the seal gets too scared. But the other end bites.

Evenings off in Penzance out of season were not inspiring. Twice Mark was the only person in a restaurant (Gino's Italian - very nice scallops in brandy sauce, and a Chinese restaurant - Mark's first since returning from China proper). The Little India restaurant got round the lack of an alcohol licence by allowing diners to bring their own - Mark brought his from the Co-op opposite.

At least it didn't rain - well not too much, too often anyway.