I work in a large independent school in the south of England – this is probably why my posts are quite frequent through the school holiday, but more rare during term time. My background is as an English teacher, but, possibly sadly, I don't do so much classroom teaching now, as I am a deputy head. Possibly the most exciting thing about the school is that we have our own zoo: our collection is quite large, with, mammal-wise, yellow mongooses, Egyptian fruitbats, a skunk, red squirrels, dormice, tenrecs, tree shrews, African hedgehogs, and a Virginia opossum. I may have forgotten some species. The bird collection is not so large, but we do have a lot of reptiles and amphibians. The collection is overseen by an occasional Zoochat contributor; having a colleague who knows his aardvark from his emu is, of course, fantastic – as is the opportunity when work becomes rather onerous to slip away and see how the mongooses are getting on.