Two Bears in Bruges (or Brugge)

Hanley Bear and I have recently returned from our biggest adventure so far of 2018 - a trip to Belgium with our human guardians, Grizzly and Polar.  We went all the way there by train, travelling on the very speedy Eurostar from St Pancras station in London to Brussels Midi.  As he doesn't have as many outfits as me, Polar made Hanley Bear a beret to wear on the journey.

The train we caught to Bruges wasn't like any British trains as it had an upstairs and a downstairs!  We wanted to go upstairs for the view but Polar and Grizzly had heavy bags with them and found it easier to sit downstairs.

We were thrilled when we found our 'hotel' was actually a boat on the canal.  Hanley Bear and I could look out of the window and watch huge barges going by while Polar and Grizzly went out to explore, although we didn't stay in our room all the time.  Exploring the boat hotel, we met two other bears - The Captain and little Albert (pronounced Al Bear) - and they told us how to get into the city without being seen by too many humans or run over by all the bicycles. 

'You will find lots of other bears in Brugge,' explained The Captain.  'The Bear is the symbol of our city.'

We made our way over some bridges and canals and through a lovely park, following the instructions our Belgian bear friends had given us.  When we got to the city centre, we tried talking to some pretty girl bears in a shop, but they didn't reply.  At first, we thought they might speak a Flemish dialect of Bear and so didn't understand us.  Then we realised they weren't real bears but were made of chocolate! 

'We'll have to be extra careful if the humans in this city eat bears!' I said to Hanley, so we kept to the side streets and away from the crowds.  'I wonder why the boat bears didn't warn us?' 

A few streets further on we came to a shop full of bears.  We asked them if they were in danger of being eaten.

'Of course not!' one of them explained.  'We'll be adopted by kind humans, to be best friends to their human cubs and have cuddles, fun and adventures together.  This is a city that respects bears - look up and you'll see bear statues everywhere!' 

The shop bears were quite right - when we got to the city centre we saw carved bears on lots of amazing old buildings.  We also found Polar and Grizzly, which was a good thing, as we were hungry and tired from walking a long way.  

'Come and have waffles and hot chocolate with us, little bears!' said Polar, putting us in her big camera bag.

The next day, we had an upstairs train ride to Ostende, where we saw the sea for the first time and rode in a tram all along the coast, before coming back to the boat hotel. 

We thought we would like to stay there forever as it was so nice and we had made new bear friends, but the next morning we had to pack and catch more trains to get to a town called Ypres (or Ieper), and from there to a village called Kemmel. 

Grizzly explained that one hundred years ago, his father had been in a terrible battle there, in which thousands of humans, many animals and almost all the trees and plants had been killed.  There was going to be a remembrance service the next day and Grizzly, Polar, Grizzly's sister Hazel and her grown up son Rob had been invited. 

Grizzly told us that his father had seen one tiny bluebell still alive in all the ruins and that he wrote a little poem about it.  He and Polar took us out to see the woods which had grown up where the battle had been and they were full of pretty blue flowers.  Polar let us run about in the bluebells and climb the trees but after we had played for a little while, Hanley Bear and I stopped to remember all the creatures that had been killed in that war and other wars, and to wish that humans would learn to live together in peace with each other and with animals.

The next day, while our human guardians were at their ceremony, we stayed at the hotel and made friends with a wise old bear, before exploring the woods again, although we came in before the humans got back because we could hear owls hooting in the trees and we thought they might eat very small bears.  

The following morning we had to leave Belgium, although we had time on the way home for a visit to the Grand Place in Brussels where I had another delicious hot chocolate drink and Hanley Bear tried a sip of Grizzly's beer, which was quite strong and made his head spin.  Soon we were back on the Eurostar train and going under the sea to go home.  I was sad to be leaving Belgium and our bear friends there, but Polar said we might be able to go back one day.  I do hope so!

As soon as we got home, Hanley Bear took off his beret and put his Stoke City hat and scarf on.  He was very happy because his team had drawn against Liverpool, which he says means they are a better side than Roma and so definitely won't be relegated, but I am not so sure, I'm afraid.            

Sonning Hood

When Polar and Grizzly went home from Nottingham, I was left in charge of Uppie for a few days.  I had plenty of bear food - grapes, herby crackers and nice, crunchy biscuits - so I could have stayed aboard and read my bear-sized Observer's books, but I wanted to explore.

Nottingham is a very big city but as it is very busy, I thought it should be quite easy for a small bear to make his way along the towpath and into town without being seen.  It was easy to avoid humans but there were lots of noisy, argumentative Canada Geese on the towpath, who tried to peck my ears and tail, which wasn't very nice of them. 

There were rats too.  I was very nervous when I saw the rats but they were actually very friendly.  They said they were lucky that people in their home city kept alive the memory of a local hero called Robin Hood, who robbed from the rich to give to the poor, as they lived by gathering up waste food dropped for them by kind humans and giving it to their babies.

'There's a statue of Robin Hood up by the castle,' they told me, and they showed me the way to get there, leading me past some huge old warehouses that were now pubs and clubs and restaurants.  According to the rats, it was a very good area to find free food as drinking lots of beer made humans buy more food but eat less of it.

We had to be very careful crossing some busy roads but there were lanes and back alleys we could use to get up to the castle, where the rats showed me their human heroes, the statues of Robin Hood and his friends.  They showed me where to get into the castle too.  I was small enough to squeeze under the gates and climbed up on the walls to get a view across the whole city, before taking a stroll around inside, where there is a gallery full of clever and beautiful things humans have made and painted.

'As there are so many people, there must be lots of small bears in Nottingham too,' I thought, but I had no idea where to find them.  I looked in the caves underneath the castle, but there were no bears there.

I scurried further along the towpath, where some nice people from the Inland Waterways Association and Canal and River Trust were busy dredging out litter, but there were no bears there either.   There was an awful lot of junk, however.  Sometimes humans can be very messy and wasteful!

I even looked along the banks of the big River Trent itself, but there were still no other small bears to be seen.  By the end of the day, I had wandered much further than I meant to and I thought I would have a very long walk home, until I noticed a lot of people waiting on a raised pavement.

'What are they doing?' I asked a pigeon.

'Waiting for the tram,' she said.  She explained that trams were like trains that ran on rails through streets and, because she had seen the city from the air, she could tell me which tram went closest to the canal and how many stops I should count before getting off.

I was so intrigued by the tram that I sat quietly in one corner and went past my stop and all the way out to the terminus before coming back into the city.  I hoped some of the human cubs getting on and off might have bears I could talk to, but I didn't see any at all.   

'Never mind,' I said to myself.  'I'll go back to Uppie and talk to my rat friends.'  Because bears have good noses, I could smell when I was close to the canal again, so jumped off the tram near the towpath and ran back to the boat through the crowds heading for the pubs and clubs of the waterfront.

The rats were pleased I had enjoyed such an interesting day.  They invited me to have dinner with them, as they had found a big polystyrene box full of chips and a half-eaten burger, but I politely excused myself as I had plenty of fresh food on Uppie. 

When Polar and Grizzly came back, I told them I had been exploring with help from my rat friends and I told them about Robin Hood and how, although he was an outlaw, he had looked after poor people.  As I was very interested in his story, Polar made me a Robin Hood costume of my own but said she didn't think it was a good idea for me to have a bow and arrows inside the boat.

I think she was probably right about that!

In the Garden

I haven't had very much time to spend writing my blog recently, because we have had lovely, sunny weather, so Hanley Bear and I have been out in the garden a lot.  

We like Polar and Grizzly's garden as there are lots of things for small bears to do out there and different places to explore.  There are pretty flowers and trees, ponds with frogs and tadpoles in and a fountain worked by solar energy.

Once, we went right down to the bottom of the garden, at the edge of the vegetable patch, where there are some trees and a lot of ivy.

'Do you think there are wild bears living in there?' asked Hanley Bear.

I was about to say 'no', when there was a rustling noise from the undergrowth.  Hanley Bear and I both ran back up the garden path in a panic, in case there was a big, fierce wild bear about to chase us, but it turned out to be a blackbird, hunting for worms. 

During these sunny, spring days, we have usually just been playing - running about on the lawn, climbing and playing hide-and-seek, but one day Polar asked us if we would like to help her plant out the broad beans.  We are usually told to stay out of the vegetable garden, so we were proud to be trusted to help.  Polar had even found some small bear-sized tools for us! 

Polar showed us where the beans were going to be planted.  Firstly, I used my little spade to dig up the weeds, then Hanley raked the ground nice and level.  We took it in turns to help Polar dig nice deep holes for the bean plants' roots and then we lifted the plants out of their little trays and lowered them into the ground.  I thought the bean plants had a nice smell!

Hanley Bear raked plenty of earth back into the holes around the roots of each plant.  When they were all settled in, we stood well back and Polar used a very big watering can to water them, but not us.

Polar had lots of spare plants so yesterday she had a plant sale for her friends.  We made some of our special Honey and Nutmeg Bear Cakes for the guests, to raise money for our Paddington Fund to do Good Things. 

We were quite pleased to sell some cakes but even more pleased that there were some left for our tea!  We made a new small animal friend and some new human friends too, so it was a very good day.