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!