New Bear's Resolutions

On Sunday evening, Hanley Bear and I were allowed to stay up late, to see in the New Year with Polar and Grizzly.  We watched the fireworks from London and held hands and paws for Auld Lang Syne, which is a funny song with words that nobody understands that humans sing at this time of year.

Another New Year human tradition is to make resolutions.  These are things people promise themselves they will do to make their lives or other's lives better or happier, then usually don't do.  For example, every year for the last four years, Polar has promised herself she would cycle to work more and hasn't, so this year her resolution is to stop resolving that, because the potholes in the roads are too scary.  Instead, she has resolved to walk to work, or home from work, as often as she can.  We bears hope she will keep this resolution as it will quickly wear out the toes and heels of her socks and we will get lots of new sock jumpers.

Hanley Bear made a resolution too.  He resolved to be a very successful lucky mascot bear and pestered Grizzly to take him to Stoke City's football match against Newcastle on New Year's Day.  Hanley pinned his Stoke City hat to his Stoke City scarf and pinned his Stoke City scarf to his Stoke City sock jumper with his Oatcake Boat badge so he didn't lose them, then squeezed  himself into a pocket on Grizzly's jacket.  He set off cheering, expecting a famous victory, but came home very sad.  His team had lost and the weather had been horrible.  Grizzly was very kind and put his coat over him to keep him dry, but even a helping of Christmas pudding with cream didn't cheer him up.

My resolution was to try to raise some real money for our special Paddington Fund, to buy rice pudding, socks and other nice things for poor children and grown-ups and their animal friends.  What better way to do that could there be, than by making marmalade? 

Hanley Bear and I worked very hard, with help from Polar, chopping up oranges, cutting the peel into strips, weighing out sugar and stirring the mixture.  Polar made us aprons and hats to keep our fur out of the marmalade and the marmalade out of our fur.  By the end of a busy afternoon, we thought we had made lots of delicious marmalade which Polar could take to work and sell to her friends.

'It hasn't set, bears!' Polar said, tipping the jars so we could see the contents swilling about.

We explained it was a special drinking marmalade recipe, for small bears to use on long journeys.

'But people like to spread marmalade on their toast,' said Polar.  If it's too runny, it will pour off before they can eat it.  We'll have to see what we can do to help it set.'

Polar added some lemon marmalade mix to half of our orange marmalade and, after she boiled it, that set firmly.  She plans to add lemons to the rest this weekend, after she and Grizzly do their next shop, but Hanley Bear wants to leave the lemons out of some jars and keep it as drinking marmalade.  He is sure drinking marmalade will give the players at Stoke City the energy they need to win their matches, so he is guarding a stash of it out in the kitchen ready for the next home game.