Our journey begins at Vauxhall, south London and just about south of the Thames. I have never been to Vauxhall before. Itâs one of those random Zone 1 Tube stations which exists only as a mildly exotic name, with your Pimlicos, your Ovals, your Queensways.
There are lots of bikes and âyouthfulâ, âedgyâ fonts to spell out âVauxhallâ. I suspect Vauxhall wants to be south Londonâs answer to Shoreditch. (Isnât Peckham is meant to have got there first? Or maybe Dulwich. Who knows. Iâm not from the London and donât claim to understand its regional one-upsmanships.)
One way leads to the river; one way leads to Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. I go to the latter. A green open space is refreshing on first glance, but a second reveals itâs really just a small-ish park, with lots of trampled daisies, a few benches and some picnickers. The head of the Shard peeks over the trees from afar. On the right: an enclosure with some horses. Behind it, Vauxhall City Farm.
A free petting zoo-cum-farm in central London. Whatâs not to like? Itâs small, but clearly run with a lot of love. Of course, being free and during a weekday, itâs currently hosting a school trip, and a herd of schoolchildren clot most of the walkways.
Signs everywhere remind you to wash your hands. To the right: some smaller animals â birds, mostly â and an ecology section. Straight ahead: donkeys! (And horses.) To the left: âfarmyardâ animals, a small animals room, a cafe, a community garden. I go right.
The goose starts honking at me, so I quietly reply with âHonk, honk, honkâ in reply. It honks back when I finish honking. I honk back. It honks back again. I feel like the goose and I have an understanding.
I coo out loud at the rabbits (the only broodiness Iâve ever experienced is for rabbits. I want a pet rabbit, damn it), and wonder how well they get on with the birds they share a cage  with. I send hilarious Snapchats to friends, pictures of cockerels with the caption âSurrounded by cockâ. I get a selfie with an inexplicable plastic model of a cow. Even more inexplicably, my face looks OK in it. Ego level up. I mosey around the ecology section. Plants and stuff. Cool. Good stuff.
Itâs donkey time! I love donkeys. Animal charities donât normally interest me (sorry :( ), but as soon as the adverts roll during a break in Americaâs Next Top Model on Real Lives, my heartstrings are brutally plucked at by the donkey sanctuary charity. Theyâre just so cute. Horses are too big, too powerful and up themselves, too adored by primary school aged girls who bully those who donât share their interest. Definitely not projecting my primary school years onto horses. No sirree. In any case, donkeys are way cuter.
Iâm a bit wary of most animals and wonât pet them, but the donkey is so tame and gentle-looking that I feel confident enough to pet it. It looks a bit depressed, but doesnât move away. Its fur is dry and dusty, and I hope itâs only been rolling around in dust and straw, and not its own poop. (Not going to take a chance, though; handwash time.)
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I really came for the alpacas, but am blindsided by goats; mainly the tiny kid who ends up with a bucket on its head. The schoolchildren are really in the way now, although theyâre feeding the goats, meaning some amusing shots of all the goats craning their necks over to get some chow. Thereâs a black sheep baaing at two girls about my age, who laugh hysterically and video its plaintive cries before trying to get pictures with the alpacas.
Sadly, the alpacas are incredibly antisocial towards me when I try to get selfies with them, so I turn to the goats for some animal selfie help. They oblige, but not before the cheeky bastard in the photo starts trying to chew my coat. At this point I want to move into the small animals room, especially as I spy both a gerbil fact card by one of the tanks, and a tiny hedgehog being shown to the schoolkids â but guess what: theyâre in my sodding way. Again. And the alpacas still wonât pose with me.
The school trip clearly arenât going to be letting me get near the gerbils and hedgehogs any time soon, so I continue onwards past the cafe and the duck enclosure to the community garden. There are adorable hedgehog flowerpots and, as you might expect from a garden, lots of plants. No idea what any of them were, obviously. Being able to name hundreds of plant names because of Countdown doesnât mean I know what they actually are (or even that a word I know is actually a plant, because we donât learn the definitions).
Hunger has set in from all the walking, (not to mention earlier appointments and market research and a detour to the David Bowie mural in Brixton:
The cafĂ© is reasonably priced given London prices, and is apparently quite new. It does look new. I plump for the vegan option of a carrot, cannellini bean and coconut soup with rye bread (ÂŁ4: the soup is quite nice; Iâm not a fan of the bread) and a pleasant hot chocolate (ÂŁ2.20 â I forgo the cream and marshmallows), which comes with a duck-shaped biscuit. I donât like biscuits, but I can deal with a small one shaped like a duck.
Back to the small animals hut, then. The gerbil fact sheet informs me that their Latin name translates as âclawed warriorâ, which pleases me. I donât actually see any gerbils, but Iâve got 3 beautiful boys at home (RIP Button :( ), so itâs not the end of the world. A couple walk in and start looking at the guinea pigs. âLook at the gerbils,â the man says to his wife, as a chinchilla eyes him beadily. âOh, no, theyâre not gerbils,â I pipe up, because I am basically a walking gerbilpedia at this point. âGuinea pigs?â he asks. I nod and, satisfied that Iâve done my educational duty for the day, walk off into the sunset (i.e. back to Vauxhall station and off to get a train home).
Quite honestly, Iâd be pretty happy with this whole experience even if Iâd paid for it. As a freebie though, it was an utter joy. I mightâve moaned about the school children, but itâs probably a good thing for kids to see animals and not be scared of them. And it was definitely a good thing for me to be able to pet a donkey and have a highbrow conversation with a goose. (But not have my clothes eaten by a goat. I have enough animal-chewed clothes thanks to the gerbils) Itâs definitely one to add to your âcheap day out in Londonâ bucket list.
The Time I Went to Vauxhall City Farm and a Goat Tried to Eat My Coat Our journey begins at Vauxhall, south London and just about south of the Thames. I have never been to Vauxhall before.
