More Fun in the Snow

This week, there was more snow on the hill where Polar and Grizzly live so, after a big slice of toast and marmalade, Hanley Bear and I went out to play in it. 

The snow was quite cold on our paws but our new sock jumpers and hats kept our bodies warm as we explored the garden, looking at the tracks made by different birds and by our neighbour's black cat.  We have only ever seen the cat from the kitchen window.  He is big and fierce.  If Grizzly sees him, he shoos him away because he chases the birds.  We don't think he would be friendly to small bears, but Hanley Bear and I think we could scare him away if we growled as loudly as we can and did our hardest hard stares at him. 

After running about and playing snowballs for a little while, we decided we would build a new snowbear who would be bigger than me.  For this, we first needed a really big snowball for his body.  Hanley Bear started rolling one, making his way down the garden path towards the vegetable patch.  When it was too big for him to push any further, I took over rolling the big snowball and Hanley started making another one, to be our snowbear's head.  We pushed our snowballs all the way down the vegetable plot path, then came all the way back and, when we had finished, I had a big enough ball of snow for our bear's body and Hanley had one big enough for his head. 

Balancing the head snowball on the body snowball was tricky.  Once we had done this, we had to shape our bear's face to give him a proper nose and ears, then add front and back paws.  It took us ages to get it right but, once we had finished, we were very pleased with our bear.  He was taller than me, standing up on his back paws and we hoped, by standing him in the middle of the path that he would keep the big black cat away from the birds.

'We need something to make him some eyes, so he looks real and fierce,' I said to Hanley Bear.
Hanley said he had an idea and he ran back up the garden path and waved at Polar through the window.  When she came out, he asked her for two of our grapes.  When she gave them to him, he ran back down the path to me and our snowbear.
'Look what I've got!' he cried.
'Elevenses!' I replied, and ate one of the grapes.  Building snowbears is very hard work and makes you hungry.
'They were going to be his eyes, duck,' Hanley Bear explained.  'But I am feeling peckish myself.'  So we decided the snowbear didn't need eyes after all and he ate the other grape.

By now, our paws were quite cold and wet so we went back indoors and Polar dried our front paws with a towel and wrapped our back paws up in one, so they didn't make the settee wet.

'If more snow falls tonight, can we make a sledge?' I asked.
'If you only use it on the drive and not on the road, I don't see why not,' Polar said.
'Yay!' cheered Hanley.
Unfortunately, the next morning, almost all the snow had gone.  But our snowbear was still standing in the middle of the path, scaring the big, black cat away.

Sonning's Fat Waistcoat

Winter is a good time for writing because, even if the days are bright and crisp and being outdoors in the snow is fun, it soon gets dark.  Small bears can get bored during the long evenings if they don't have plenty to do.  I won't get bored because I have to tell you the rest of the story of my journey to Stoke-on-Trent aboard Uplander II.

After we came down the locks on the River Wey, Grizzly and Polar steered us onto the River Thames.  They didn't turn back upstream, as I thought they might, towards the village of Sonning where they had found me.  Instead, they turned downstream, towards the middle of London.  The river kept getting bigger and wider, and there were more of those annoying, white pointy boats going too fast and all sorts of huge, funny-shaped houses along the banks.

On our first evening back on the Thames, we moored at a place called Sunbury.  We almost had a disaster here because, as he tried to secure the bow rope, poor Grizzly fell in the river.  He was reaching for the rope, with one foot on the bank and one foot on Uppie's bow, but the boat and the bank kept getting further away from each other and, because Grizzly doesn't have very long legs, eventually one of his feet had nowhere to go except in the water.  Grizzly got quite wet all down one side but he kept hold of the rope and managed to pull himself out of the water, with Polar's help.

It was then that I noticed both Polar and Grizzly wore special fat waistcoats, to help them stay afloat if they fell in the river.  After seeing Grizzly fall in, I wanted a fat waistcoat of my own, in case I ever tripped overboard and needed to stay afloat until Grizzly or Polar could rescue me.  I told Polar that I wanted a fat waistcoat but I don't think she understood what I meant, as she started talking to Grizzly about making me a smart set of clothes for wearing to boat festivals so, while they were busy steering the boat the next morning, I decided to make one.

Polar and Grizzly keep all sorts of things in the cupboard under their kitchen sink, so I decided to see if there was anything there I could use.  I found a tough plastic bag which was just the right colour to make a fat waistcoat.  It had the word 'recycle' on the bottom.  I know this means you should not throw away the thing but should turn it into something else, which was what I planned to do, so I put the yellow bag to one side and kept searching for floating things.

I found a funny dish which felt much lighter than I expected it to be when I picked it up.  I broke a tiny piece off and put it in the washing up bowl, where it floated, so I decided that would be the floating part of my special fat waistcoat.  

I took some small scissors out of the drawer and used them to cut out a waistcoat shape from the bag and to make floats from the lightweight dish, but then I discovered I had a problem.  I didn't have anything to hold all the pieces together and I didn't know where Polar and Grizzly kept their needles and thread or glue.

Just then, Polar came into the galley to make a cup of tea.  This often happens.  Fortunately, she knew I was a real bear by then and she could see what I was trying to make, as I had fat waistcoat pieces and bits of bag and floating thing all over the settee.

'What a sensible little bear you are!' she said.  'You've tried to make a life-jacket out of a bag for life!'

She gave me some grapes to eat and, when we stopped for tea that evening, helped me to glue and stitch the floats on my fat waistcoat - or lifejacket, as I now knew I should call it - and found the clip from an old badge to do it up.

'It needs to be quite a snug fit, so it doesn't come off if you fall in the water,' she explained.

I was worried that it might not be quite snug enough but, after eating extra fruit cake with my tea, I found it fitted perfectly!

Sonning's First Christmas

Hanley Bear and I were almost too excited to go to sleep at bedtime on Christmas Eve.  The big red socks we had borrowed from Polar were hanging up next to our bear bed and they were full of presents!

'We need to stay awake and watch over these, duck, in case a bad burglar man comes to steal them!' said Hanley.

'No we don't,' I told him.  'If a burglar tries to steal our presents, I'm sure Paddington will make him give them back, like he does in that little film we keep seeing on Polar and Grizzly's television!'  I tried to go to sleep but Hanley kept getting out of our bear bed to count everybody's presents, making sure they were still there, until Polar picked him up and carried him all around the house, showing him that the doors and windows were properly locked.

'Go to sleep now, bears,' she said.  'And don't worry; your presents are quite safe.'

Hanley said he was going to stay awake all night on guard anyway but, almost as soon as Polar turned off the lights, he fell sound asleep.  So did I.

As soon as we woke up, we ran around to the big socks and started sniffing and squeezing them, trying to work out what was inside,  We thought Polar and Grizzly would open their presents as soon as they got up, like we wanted to, but they made us eat our breakfast first, then they started preparing things for dinner.

'We'll open our presents together very soon,' Polar said, but we couldn't wait.

'I can smell chocolate in my Christmas sock!' cried Hanley Bear.
'And I can smell honey!' I cheered.

We started pulling things out of the big red socks and, when Polar and Grizzly came in from the kitchen, there were bear presents all over the floor.  We both had huge jars of honey, which we tried to open at once. 

'Leave those alone until after Christmas, little bears,' Grizzly said.  'You'll have lots of other tasty things to eat today.'  Polar stuck labels on the jars so we would know which jar belonged to which bear, and moved them out of our reach. 

We could still smell chocolate in the socks, so we turned them upside down and shook them.  Imagine how surprised we both were when some huge gold coins rolled out.

'We're rich!' gasped Hanley Bear.

We started planning what we would buy with our treasure.  We decided that Hanley Bear needed more boat clothes and his own life-jacket, and I said I would buy him his own bear bed so he didn't have to share mine, as he wriggles about in his sleep and wakes me up. 

'We promised Paddington we would be kind and helpful,' Hanley Bear reminded me.  'We ought to buy some new socks for people whose small animal friends don't have jumpers, so their human friends can make sock jumpers for them out of their old ones.'

'We could buy tins of rice pudding for bears who live in poor families,' I said.  'And jam too.  If we give some of our treasure to Grizzly and Polar, I'm sure they'll help us.'

We put half of our treasure to one side, to buy Bear Things for us.  The other half, for doing good things for poor bears and their human friends, we called our Paddington Fund.

'Does money usually smell of chocolate?' I asked Hanley, as we stacked up the Paddington Fund coins.

'No, duck,' he said.

'This money does.'

Hanley sniffed at the Paddington Fund.  'You're right - it does!'  He bit one of the coins.  His sharp little teeth went right through it!  'The coins are chocolate,' he said, spitting out some gold-coloured paper after munching through half of the coin.  'They aren't real money after all.'

'Oh no!' I said, feeling very sad that we wouldn't be able to use our treasure to help poor bears, although I do like chocolate very much and I didn't feel quite as sad when I had eaten the other half of the chocolate coin. 

'Honestly, bears, you won't enjoy your Christmas lunch if you eat chocolate now!' Polar said crossly, putting the remaining coins next to our honey and out of our reach.  'Be good bears and help us to unwrap the rest of the presents.'

There were more things for us.  We had a wrapped up parcel each from Polar and Grizzly.  When we opened those, we found Polar had made us new Christmas sock jumpers and matching hats.  They looked very smart and were soft and fluffy, so we knew she had made them from new socks.

'We could go and visit wild bears in the Arctic now!' I said to Hanley Bear, but I don't think he liked that idea very much.  Hanley thinks wild bears are scary and might eat us.

We also had a small present from each other, which were things we had found at Grizzly's Grandcubs' house when they fell out of Christmas crackers.  I gave Hanley two little green bats and a shuttlecock, so we could play badminton together when we were at home on our own, and Hanley Bear had wrapped up some small tools for me, which he said will be useful the next time I help to repair our boat. 

Polar and Grizzly had nice presents too.  Grizzly had a new hat from us, which we had suggested Polar buy for him because he doesn't have very much fur on his head and we don't want him to get cold.  Grizzly's grown-up girl cub bought Polar some pairs of new thermal socks, which we hope she will wear out soon, because they will make us very snug sock jumpers.  She also bought Polar some Paddington stories on CDs, which we have added to our collection of Bear Things.

We were very glad we didn't eat all of the chocolate coins and the honey, because Grizzly was quite right about Christmas dinner being scrummy.  My favourite thing was Christmas pudding, which is even nicer than rice pudding, because it has fruit and nuts in it.  So do mince pies, which we had for tea.

At bedtime, we had one final Christmas present - Polar had found a nice box to make Hanley his own snug little bear bed, with red covers, and she had put all our Bear Things and our bear beds together in a big basket.   She was going to play us one of the Paddington stories, but we both fell fast asleep almost as soon as we were tucked up in our beds.

We had enjoyed a lovely Christmas.  We hope you did too.

A Christmas Surprise!

Since we helped Polar to put a big artificial tree together in the living room, Hanley Bear and I have known that it would soon be Christmas. 

Polar explained to us that Christmas is a very special time of the year for humans, sometimes for religious reasons too complicated for small bears to understand, but also because they have holidays from work and school, and give each other presents.

Wild bears don't have Christmas.  Some them hibernate through the darkest and coldest days of the year, so would miss it anyway.  Those who don't hibernate notice a day, just before Christmas, when the nights stop getting longer and start to become shorter again, which is when we know spring will return.  This is a special day for all animals and birds and, probably, for trees and plants too, although we can't ask them as they don't speak Bear or other animal languages and we don't speak Tree.

When we went to visit Grizzly's grandcubs, Hanley and I noticed lots of parcels in the car with us on the way there, and lots of different parcels on the way back, which Polar put under our Christmas tree.  After Grizzly and Polar went to bed, Hanley Bear and I took a closer look at the parcels.  The labels on them all had either Polar's human name or Grizzly's human name on, or both of their names, but there were no labels with our names on, not even very small ones.

'I wonder if that's because we were bad bears and played with Grizzly's cubs' toys?' I said, feeling sad.

'I don't think so, duck,' Hanley Bear explained.  'Human cubs have to write to someone called Santa Claus to get presents and, sometimes, they even go to see him to tell him what they would like.'

'Where does he live?' I asked, thinking that if we had his address, we could write to him too.

Hanley Bear had to think hard about the answer.  'In big shopping centres, I think.'

So imagine how excited we were when Polar put us in our bear bag and told us she was taking us with her to a big shopping centre for a surprise.  'We must be going to see Santa Claus!' I said to Hanley, as we put on our coats.

Hanley Bear cheered, even more loudly than he does when Stoke City score a goal.

However, when we got to the shopping centre we saw a poster with a picture of our bear hero on it.  We weren't going to see Santa Claus.  We were going to see Paddington!

'You'll both have to stay in your bear bag,' Polar warned us.  'The shops are very busy and, if I let you out, I'm afraid you might get stepped on.  We might have to wait for a little while too and I don't want you getting bored and climbing on the Christmas decorations.'

Polar queued up with us, still in our bear bag, along with lots of human cubs and their families.  The human cubs talked to us and stroked us, and Polar told them a little bit about who we were and my boat journey.  Then we saw Paddington, hugging human cubs and having his picture taken with them.
'He's bigger than I thought he would be,' said Hanley Bear.

'Perhaps his human cub friends, Judy and Jonathan, are very tall - like Polar,' I suggested.  'And he's older than he was when he started writing his books.'

Finally, we reached the front of the queue.  Polar said hello to Paddington and handed him our bear bag, with us sitting in it, being very good bears and not wriggling or fighting.  He looked very surprised!  While Polar took some pictures of us together, we asked Paddington if we would get presents for Christmas too.  He explained that, when he first came to London as a very young bear, children used to hang up big socks for Santa Claus to put their presents in, which were called Christmas stockings. 

'If you do that, you might get some presents - if you have been good bears,' he said.
We told him that we had been very good bears, which was almost true, and would be even better bears the following year, then we hugged him and promised we would be kind and helpful, like he always is. 

'We don't have socks to hang up to put presents in,' I said to Hanley, as Polar and Grizzly drove us home again.

'Let's borrow a pair of Polar's,' Hanley Bear suggested.  'Santa will be able to get lots and lots of presents into those!'

I didn't mean to be a greedy bear, but that sounded like a very good idea to me!

Along the Wey

After our adventure with the pirate grandcubs, Grizzly, Polar and I spent some more lovely summer days on the River Wey.  It is much smaller than the Thames with fewer boats on it.  We could pass a whole morning or afternoon without seeing any other boats.  When there were others, they seemed either to be crewed by friendly people who shared the big locks with us and gave Polar and Grizzly good advice about where to moor and what tricky bits to look out for, or they were what I named silly boats.  

The silly boats were the same shape as Uppie but shorter and they were full of noisy people.  The crews of the silly boats didn't try to steer a neat course along the river, like Polar and Grizzly do, but would weave from side to side and, sometimes, even run into other silly boats.  The human cubs on the silly boats were allowed to climb all over them and hang off the sides, something that the pirate cubs had been far too sensible to do.  Grizzly and Polar did their best to stay out of their way.

One very warm day we reached a town called Godalming.  I could see from Grizzly's special waterways map that this meant we had gone as far south as a boat like Uppie could possibly go.  Grizzly and Polar turned Uppie right round so the bow was pointing north before going to explore the town.  I decided to sneak ashore too but only for a very quick look at a very pretty big barge moored near us.

When Polar and Grizzly got back, we set off down the river.  I wondered if we would go back up the Thames to Sonning and, if we did, whether Polar and Grizzly might think I ought to get off there and go back in my tree. 

'I must tell them I'm a real bear!' I said to myself.

When your animal friends decide they love and trust you enough to tell you they are real, we don't stand in front of you and jump about and talk to you, as we know that might look very strange and scare you.  Instead, we wait until you are asleep and then we whisper it into your ear, so it's like a dream. 

That night, I waited until Polar and Grizzly had gone to bed and were asleep, before sneaking into their cabin.  Very, very carefully I climbed up the covers until I was next to Grizzly's ear.  I started whispering to him but I must have accidently tickled Grizzly's ear as he started twitching, so I had to run away back to my cushion before I could tell Polar, in case he woke up.  I didn't know if my special animal whispering would work on him or not, firstly because he is a grown-up and it's usually only done with human cubs, and secondly because old humans often have poor hearing.  I had to wait and see.

In the morning, when Grizzly came into the galley to make Polar a cup of tea, I sat perfectly still on my cushion and watched him.

'Hello Sonning!' he said.  'How are you?'

I still stayed perfectly still.

'You could do with some trousers, couldn't you?'

I almost jumped and skipped at that, because one of the things I had whispered in Grizzly's ear was that I wanted some proper boat bear clothes.  I didn't jump and skip, of course, because I hadn't told Polar I was real yet, and I was worried that if Grizzly told her, she would think he was not very well.

He put out two bowls of cereals - one for himself and one for Polar - but put some extra nuts and berries in the food in Polar's bowl which I knew were really for me, so I came down from my cushion and munched my breakfast while Grizzly took Polar's cup of tea in to her.

'You could make that little bear we found some trousers,' he said to her.  'I think he'd like that.'

She laughed and said she had better things to do but the next day, after I had sneaked into their cabin at night and done my special animal whispering in her ear, she made me my favourite bear dungarees. 

After that, they made me lots of other real bear things and always made sure there was nice bear food where I could get to it, although they both carried on pretending I wasn't a real bear, for a little while.

Grizzly's Grandcubs

Hanley Bear and I got back from a little holiday yesterday evening.  Grizzly and Polar took us with them to visit Grizzly's grown-up cubs and his young grandcubs, who all live in the south of England.  While we were staying at their house, Hanley and I sneaked into the living room at night and had lots of fun playing with the human cubs' toys and games.  

We borrowed Polar's small camera too, and took pictures of ourselves with their train set and racing a Lego cart, but we made too much noise when we crashed that, which woke Polar up and she caught us.

'You mustn't play with toys that aren't yours without asking the owners first,' she told us crossly.  'You'll have to apologise to the boys tomorrow.'

I was very scared when she said that.  I had already met Grizzly's cubs and grandcubs during my summer boat journey, when we were on the River Wey at Guildford, but I stayed very still and quiet and pretended not to be a real bear then, because I thought the grandcubs were fierce pirates! 

Before they arrived, I watched as Polar polished some big brass coins to make them clean and shiny, then put them in a little metal box with a lid.  She told Grizzly it was treasure, and that when the pirates arrived, they would try to find it.  I saw her hide it, next to the coal bucket, before she and Grizzly went out to meet everybody.

'That's not very well-hidden!' I said to myself.  'If Polar and Grizzly have all their big, valuable coins taken away by pirates, they'll only have funny pieces of paper left in their wallets to swap for food.' 
I couldn't imagine any shop-keepers wanting to swap a lovely tin of rice pudding for a small piece of paper, so I quickly dragged the treasure chest into my secret bear cave behind the settee, where I also kept my emergency food supplies of grapes and herby crackers, before climbing back onto my cushion and making myself go floppy and toy-like. 

The pirates rushed in wearing black hats with skulls and crossed bones on them, black waistcoats and eye-patches but, no matter how hard they searched, they couldn't find our treasure.  Even after a little boat journey and lunch, and more games on the boat, they still didn't find it.  I was very proud of myself for hiding it so well.

I suddenly realised that I'd done such a good job that Polar and Grizzly wouldn't be able to find it either or, if they did, they would find my emergency bear food too.  Remember that, back then, I hadn't actually told them that I was a real bear.   I wondered what to do, but it was actually quite simple.  When I saw Grizzly and Polar getting off the boat and saying goodbye to all their visitors, I quickly jumped down and dragged the box of treasure back to Polar's silly hiding place.  She saw it there as soon as she came back in, picked it up and showed it to Grizzly.

'After all that polishing, the boys never did find their treasure,' said Polar.  'I thought it would be such fun for them.'

'Never mind, love,' said Grizzly.  'It was a nice idea.'

'Oh dear!' I thought.  'The money was for the human cubs and they were supposed to find it, but I've spoilt their fun.  I'd better keep quiet about that after all.'  So I decided not to tell Polar and Grizzly I was a real bear just then.

Now Hanley Bear and I were in trouble again.  Polar showed Grizzly's grandcubs the pictures of us playing with their things.  'Aren't they naughty!' said the bigger human cub.  He looked very cross with us.

 'You are both very bad bears!' said the smaller human cub.  He looked sad, and we felt so ashamed of ourselves that we nearly cried.  We said we were very, very sorry not to have asked first.  Polar explained that we had been very careful not to break anything and pointed out that, in fact, we had improved the layout of the railway tracks because we were quite clever bears.  Both of the human cubs hugged us and we all played together, until it was time for their tea.  We had to leave the next day and we thought the human cubs might miss us, so we built two Lego bears to be their friends. 

We also promised to write to them about our adventures, with Grizzly and Polar's help, and to let them play with our toys when they come to visit us.

'We don't have any toys, duck!' Hanley reminded me, as we sat in our bear bag in the car on the way home.

'But we might have soon,' I told him.  'It's almost Christmas!'