Football Fans

It is very, very hot outside, too hot for small bears today, so I am staying indoors and writing my blog.

Hanley, Endon and I were hoping to have lots of boat adventures this summer but we had to stay at home while Polar got treatment for a blood clot in her leg.  Sitting or standing still for a long time is bad for her, so steering the boat for hours at a time, like she did on the Thames, would not be a good idea.  I am pleased to say she is getting better now and we are hoping we can do a little journey soon.

Watching the World Cup with Grizzly

Luckily, we have plenty to keep us out of mischief, like helping in the garden, and we are enjoying the World Cup.  As well as supporting England, we all picked one other team to cheer for.  I chose Belgium because I had such a lovely holiday there - then found they are in the same group as England, so I don't know who I should cheer for today! 

Hanley is cheering for Senegal, because they have two Stoke City players in their team, although he was also jumping about with joy when Shaqiri scored for Switzerland as he has been Hanley's favourite Stoke City player. 

Little Endon supported Peru, in honour of Paddington Bear and his Aunt Lucy, so he is sad they have been knocked out already.  We told him he should be very proud, as they have been voted the team with the best fans.  We feel sorry for all the bears who support teams who have been knocked out.  If bears organised it, every team would have to play every other team and there would be lots more games to watch and more chances for small teams to score.

We can't stay indoors watching football all the time, as there are things to do in the garden - like picking strawberries!  Our humans say we have a very good crop this year so, as there are so many, we are going to make some jam soon.  

We will also have plenty to eat if it stays too hot outdoors for furries and we decide to watch the tennis at Wimbledon instead!

Space Bears!

I have always been interested in stars and space.  Even when I was stuck in the elderberry bush by the Thames, I could look up into the night sky and wonder whether there were small bears on other planets looking back at me.  So when Grizzly said he was going to take Polar to Jodrell Bank for her birthday, I made sure we bears were taken along too.

Jodrell Bank is where a scientist called Sir Bernard Lovell had a huge radio-telescope built.  Because it listens to space, rather than looking at it, it is a huge dish which can be turned to face any direction in the sky - usually.  When we arrived, we found it was being repaired! 

I think I have said before that bears would be good at space exploration, because we could hibernate during the dull parts of the long journeys to other planets.   Because space is so big, it takes months or even years even to get to other parts of our Solar System - the other planets and things orbiting around our sun.

Because we might not find other planets we can live on, we bears want humans to look after the one we all share.  Sensible humans, like the scientists at Jodrell Bank, want this too and have asked visitors to make a Planet Pledge.  We are looking after bees by planting flowers that they like, picking up litter and putting it in the bin and not wasting food or things that we can use again.

There were lots of scientific things to read, which were quite confusing but also fascinating, like how looking up at the stars is actually looking back in time, because light from so far away takes hundreds, thousands or even millions of years to reach Earth.

There were some fun experiments to try too.  That's me looking at a plasma ball and an infra-red (heat wave) picture of Polar and us bears in our bear bag.  You can see that we look cool, because our thick fur traps most of our heat inside our bodies!

Outside, there were some experiments about gravity and sound waves for human cubs and grown-ups to try, including the 'whispering dishes'.  

Even though these are many metres apart, if you stand right in front of one and your friend stands right in front of the other, you can talk to each other in whispers and still be heard, because the dish focusses the sound waves from your friend's voice on your ear!  While Hanley Bear and I were trying this, Endon found another use for them...

At least he didn't try to climb the big dish!

Three Bears go to Cheshire

Hanley, Endon and I were exploring again this weekend, with help from Polar and Grizzly, and we have tried to be helpful bears too.

Our first adventure was to a town called Middlewich in Cheshire.  Fellow Boat Bears will probably have heard of it, because there is an important junction there between the Trent and Mersey Canal and a branch of the Shropshire Union Canal, which are linked by a tiny section of waterway known as the Wardle Canal. 

 Polar and Grizzly have some friends there who live in a house which backs onto the canal.  Usually, these friends moor their own boat next to their garden but at the moment they can't, because there is almost no water in it!  This is because a very big section of the canal bank collapsed earlier this year, letting all the water out, and it will take a long time and lots of money to fix it.  This is why Grizzly and Polar's friends were having a fund-raising day for the Canal and River Trust.  We had to stay in our bear bag most of the time because we were close to the water without life-jackets and there were lots of people about, but we were allowed to run about in the garden close to the house before it got too busy.

Polar took some of her spare plants and there were games, tombolas and lots of lovely cakes and biscuits for people to eat, for a donation.  We asked for a slice each of several of the cakes, including a very scummy strawberry gateau, before we realised you were supposed to pay something for them and that other people didn't want to eat pieces of cake which had already been gnawed by small bears! 

Luckily, Polar and Grizzly finished off our cake and gave us some pocket money, so we could make a donation for our cakes, play the 'Nail Game' and buy some marmalade.  The Nail Game is a big board with holes in and long nails in the holes.  Some of the nails have their tips painted different colours, but you can't see the tips of the nails when they are in the board.  It costs 10p to chose a nail and if you pick out a painted nail, you win a prize.  We had one go each, taking lots of time to chose our nails and trying to smell which ones had paint on, but we didn't win anything.  This made Endon very sad and he almost started to cry.  A very kind lady paid 60p so we could have two more goes each and this time, Hanley won a little ball.  We thought it would be fun to play with in the garden, but then we saw a human cub lose 50p of his pocket money on the game and, as we had been treated to extra goes and felt sorry for him, we gave him the ball.

'You are very kind bears,' said Polar, when we told her what we had done.  'But why have you bought marmalade when you have made lots for us already?'

We explained that we wanted to taste it as it was a different recipe using little satsumas and, if it was nice, we would get some at Christmas and make our own version, and give some jars of it to our Inland Waterways friends.

We hope the big hole in the canal will be fixed soon.  Polar and Grizzly's friends raised almost £500 from their fund-raising day, which is a lot of money to a small bear but apparently not quite enough to mend a canal, so we hope other people will do fund-raising things to.  Don't forget that if you do hold a fair or sale, we bears are always ready to test your cakes!

Three Bears in the Garden

It is raining today, so I am writing, as I want to tell you about our latest adventures in the garden and about Endon Bear's special skills.

You might remember than Hanley Bear and I rescued Endon by helping Polar to win him in a spin-the-wheel game.  He is still quite a young cub and full of energy, so we need to watch over him to make sure he stays safe when we go out into the garden.

Little Endon can't run and skip as well as most small bears, as his left leg and back paw is slightly twisted, so he uses up a lot of his energy climbing, as he can use his three good paws for this and rely less on his poorly paw. 

Because he is small and even lighter than Hanley Bear, he can climb very thin branches, but this makes it hard for us to rescue him if he climbs too high and gets frightened to climb down.  As he is a fearless and inquisitive little cub, this sometimes happens.  Last week, he climbed up and out onto a very thin stalk on the wisteria where we couldn't follow him, then panicked that he couldn't get back.  

Hanley Bear and I couldn't go to get him as his branch was too thin to hold more than one small bear.  Luckily, Hanley Bear was able to talk him down while I was scurrying about looking for either a blanket for us to catch him in, or for Polar, so she could lift him down.  We were all very worried bears for a few moments.

Part of the problem - although it isn't really a problem, unless it leads him to climb further than he should - is that Endon is very interested in bees.  He knows that they are a bear's best insect friend, because they make honey, so he always listens carefully when there are nature programmes about bees.  He's asked Polar and Grizzly to help him do the Great British Bee Count. 

There are lots of bee-friendly plants in our garden, like foxgloves and honeysuckle, but as the bees' favourite flowers are very prickly little roses, he will have to ask our human guardians to lift him up to see them rather than climbing, or he will get thorns in his paws.

We are trying to get him interested in other nature too, which doesn't involve so much climbing.  He likes sitting by the pond, looking for frogs and tadpoles with us.  

Bears have a very good sense of smell so going into the garden for us is as exciting as going to a concert or firework display would be for a human, as there are new and lovely scents everywhere.  There are herbs, including thyme, lavender, lemon balm, sage, marjoram and chocolate mint - which is our favourite - and lots of roses. 

Eventually, after more climbing and looking for insects, we persuaded Endon to have a nap in the rosemary with us.  It is a nice springy shrub and smells so nice it made us all feel sleepy.  We were still dozing when Polar came out to call us in for tea, so she scooped us up and carried us back indoors using her old straw gardening hat.

We're glad it has rained today, as plants need water, and the garden will smell even nicer when the sun comes out and we go back out to play in it again.

A Great Day Out in Stoke-on-Trent

Although Hanley Bear is worried that he will jinx Stoke-on-Trent's bid to become a Channel 4 Creative Hub if he supports it too keenly, I don't think that stops us from telling people about great things to see and do here, especially when it's something as good as the Etruria Canal Festival.

This happens every year and is a super mix of handsome heritage canal boats gathering together, arts and craft stalls, music and dance, and people from all the different communities in the city come along to enjoy the day.  There are lots of fun activities for human cubs too.  Because it is free to come in, everybody can enjoy it, even if they don't have very much money.  

Hanley, Endon and I were there yesterday, with Polar and Grizzly.  Grizzly was helping the local Inland Waterways Association branch on their information and sales stall, while Polar was able to class her day out as 'work' since she was looking after the Citizens Advice stall with some of her friends.  Tina and Lisa both love us bears and took it in turns to take us around the site to meet other friends, so we didn't get bored while Polar was busy.  

Hanley Bear was particularly pleased to see Tina again, as she is the human who rescued him last year, and she was delighted to see him too.  We also saw our friends B'Oatcake Kay and Rob the Locks there.  In fact, it seemed everybody in the Potteries was there!  Polar said it was far too busy for us to leave our bear bag and explore on our own and even when she took a break, she kept us in it most of the time.  We went to see our IWA friends first and a very kind lady called Ann gave me a super bookmark she had made for me with my picture on, which was a lovely surprise, and we had our pictures taken as 'celebrity' visitors because I publish extracts from my memoires in their Knobsticks magazine!  

Then we went to see the boats and the nice people who live on them, and Polar let us have a close-up look at the lovely painting on one called Darley and the pretty cabin of another called Badger.  We loved all the heritage boats but we love Uppie too, even though Uppie isn't a heritage boat, and we hope to have some days out on the canals again soon.

Of course there were lots of people making and selling nice things at the festival, because Stoke-on-Trent is a city full of creative and artistic people.  Polar loved some T-shirts, with hand-drawn Potteries-inspired designs by Lisa's friend Wenda, and we also met Mel, who makes marvellous jewellery from scraps of broken vintage pottery.  We really liked that idea, because we bears don't approve of the way humans waste things and this is a very clever way of turning broken things into something beautiful and useful.

On the way back to her information stall, Polar let us out of the bear bag for a few moments to see a bear-sized Gypsy caravan at the B-Arts stall.  B-Arts are the group who manage the festival and lots of other creative community projects.  We loved the caravan and imagined what fun it would be to live in one and travel around the country, like we do on Uppie, but on roads instead.  The only problem would be finding a tiny enough pony to pull it for us! 

When we got back to Polar's stall we listened carefully to what she and her friends were telling people about their rights and benefits, although it is all very complicated if you are only a small bear.  Polar has included us in her team of Benefits Champions as Bear-nefits Champions, which is quite an honour, as the others are all humans.  We will have to study hard to keep up with them.  Luckily, we found there is a very wise Citizens Advice owl to help us!

We were such tired bears when we got home that we soon snuggled down to sleep in our bear basket, and we all dreamed about the brightly-painted boats, the cosy little caravan and all the clever and kind people we had met.  We are already looking forward to going next year!