For Laurel's big birthday treat we took her out to the Blue Planet Aquarium near Chester. This was inspired by her excitement at the fish at Chester Zoo and turned out to be spot on.

As we entered, the first of many glass tanks extending right down to toddler level found her totally captivated. She chattered and nattered and banged on the glass and loved it all the way round to the end. The layout kept things interesting, going round different aquatic environments (rivers, costal, tropical etc) culminating in a huge underwater tunnel with all sorts of sharks and things.

There were even some people scuba-diving in there with adoring family looking on from the safety of the tunnel (it took us a while to twig that they were members of the public paying to have their swim, not just a photo opportunity specially laid on for us ;-})

And there were even some anti-fish in the form of frogs. Laurel wasn't bothered at this stage but we thought they were rather nice.