A lot of people ask me why I've always been so into my animals and why I wanted to work with them.
Its a hard thing to answer, I normally say I like animals, they're so easy to work out, where as people baffle me.

And then sometimes I think about when I was young and I'd ride the trains up to London Bridge or Charing Cross.
Riding with commuters packed into trains, all smartly dressed and gazing out of windows in a distracted way, looking at the same things they've seen everyday for several years, some reading, or attempting to do so in those crowded conditions or some catching a few extra dozes and I'd wonder about them, did they like this?
Did they want to go into the field that they found themselves in now, or had they wanted to DO things, GO places, BE explorers in their childhood and now found themselves captive in offices, gazing out of windows wistfully at the pigeons flying free in the parks?
And in those days it was still slam-door trains and they'd sound like heartbeats bang-bang-bang as they'd all file in and out like herds of cattle to various offices to fill in another dull day of being trapped in an office.
I hated the thought of that, I swore it'd never happen to me, I was not going to be a Commuter getting up early to go to London and not getting back till late.
Working in a suit and in front of a computer would kill me so what options did I have?
And I remember being about 6 or 7 and travelling up to Waterloo and deciding I'd rather sweep the streets than do that and deciding as well, that I wanted to be well paid for what I did.
I'd had enough of the constant poor-ness of my family, I was going to get a job that I could be well paid in and not be in a dreaded office or be another faceless member of the Commuter Herd.
Well I could be an author or work with animals, but I quickly decided writing wasn't for me.
I enjoy it and like crafting little stories for my own enjoyment but when I've had to do them for school or others the words fail me.
But I could work with animals, and be outside in the fresh air, with creatures I loved.
And of course my parents hated it.
"You wont get paid well, you'll be a skivvy" They'd tell me and it made me all the more determined.
Not for me working in a kennel or down the local stables.
I was going to be a vet!
So when I was 16 I spent two weeks in a local vet surgery at realised something else very important, I could do all that they asked to try and get into Vet school, and possibly still miss out - They're very fussy and inundated with people wanting to work with animals.
But the main problem I had is my clumsiness and lack of skill and patience with fiddly things and a vet is Surgeon as well as animal GP.
So I drifted aimlessly for a year or two, unsure of what I wanted but knowing definately what I wanted NOT to be.
And then whilst helping E look through the uni listing books I saw a zoology course.
I looked it up in the dictionary.
A study of animals.
Bingo! I thought and so I went and applied and well you know the rest.
Tomorrow is the first real step (albeit in a voluntary status) towards that goal I set myself as a child watching Commuters with a sense of horror.
I'm going to work with fish!
And funnily enough - I'm going to have to commute to do it!!!