We decided to go on a mini-mission this afternoon, on the spur of the moment, and ended up at Fjärilshuset, just north of Stockholm.

There were a fair number of people, most of them in the restaurant, it seemed, which was to our advantage. I wouldn’t say we roamed leisurely (Freya was far too excited, particularly at the various pieces of fruit that had been placed in the frogs’ and snails’ aquariums), but we could roam most of the time unhindered by human traffic.

As nice as the park was, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed at the lack of actual butterflies. We spotted many koi, but, as nice as they may be to look at, that wasn’t the reason for paying 160kr entrance fee. I suppose, in fairness, we came out of season (I’m supposing butterflies have mating seasons in rainforest climes, don’t they?). If not then they need to do some serious rethinking or illegal importing.

The gift shop seemed geared towards receiving a fair number of visitors. I was mightily impressed by the range of rubbish merchandise and embalmed scorpion lollipops on offer (no batteries though, of course), but my eye was caught by the aptly named “Eco Expedition ™ Rainforest Exploration” toy-pack (see photo). Indiana Jones (whoops, it’s obviously not him) is out in the jungle, with his reasonably well-scaled binoculars, when he comes across a fuck-off huge frog. Not quite sure why Wild Republic bothered making the animal swallow-safe when Indy’s (there I go again, tut!) looking device is a certainty for death by choking. Maybe it’s because there exists such things as scorpion lollipops, and a lime-green and orange amphibian looks far too enticing to be given a reasonable scale.

Not far from the exit of the gift shop, just above eye level where most people would not ever bother to look, is a dusty advert for that (now) well-known company, Wild Republic. I’ll skip any scale-related errors here, to point out what I consider to be one of the nattiest slogans I’ve come across this year: World Leader In Nature-Related Fun. I reckon if I have to explain further the wonder of this little gem, then it’s not worth knowing why. I will point out, though, they are (self-claimed) world leaders. Where the statistics are for nature-related fun contenders is anyone’s guess, but if Wild Republic say so, who am I to argue.

And to end on an educational note, which all my entries do, we come to the notion that the word “butterfly” was originally “flutterby”. I have always reckoned this to by a sack of dogs cocks, so far-fetched as to be beyond risible, and into the realms of, well, a sack of dogs cocks. Extensive research (i.e. Wikipedia and browsing the first few results of googling “butterfly etymology”) seems back up my dogs cocks theory, though I did find out that:

a) butterflies do not poo.

b) caterpillar poo is called frass.

c) Sign language for the word butterfly involves interlocking thumbs, flapping flat hands like wings.