A Clonegal bestiary

I promised a return visit to Huntington, previously Clonegal, Castle to view the menagerie. What a splendid bunch, all living in happy co-existence (which usually means, with the beasts, more or less ignoring each other but not keeping out of each other's way, either). The big chap above is Boris, one of two pot-bellied pigs which will NOT be ending up as bacon, even if the Tsar's slightly less large, princely companion is Hamlet yclept. Here they are snuffling around in the oak grove


and dozing companionably in their pen.


The fearless feline hanging out near Boris in the top photo is Spook, upholding the tradition of a ghostly benign white cat at the castle. No matter where you left him, if you go into a room Spook, spookily, will always be there first.


There's also an old cat, Jaffa, which spends some of the time curled up in the kitchen but is usually - again, unlike Macavity - there at the scene of any crime. You could probably draw a dream-bubble around the fish...


Much the most active of the pack is the handsome Otto, a Bernese mountain dog (aka Sennenhund) with adorable tricks and manners. Like Sally and the Rev Carl's great danes, it's a huge but gentle beast.


Others guard the house. Above the armadillo in the next picture is a gharial. Olivia's mother shot the brute way back when. We could identify the creature from the ones we'd seen in Trivandrum Zoo.


You can take your pick of antlers, gazelle heads and stuffed big cats


but most arresting perhaps is the case of smaller fry.