All Around the World

After our visit to the Greenway Country Park, Polar and Grizzly took us to a place we had never been before, called Biddulph Grange.  It has a very special and exciting garden, and I am going to tell you all about it, because we had a brilliant bear adventure there.

'Because you have been such good bears, we are going to let you explore the gardens on your own,' Polar said.  'Don't get under people's feet or be silly near the water, and make sure you're back at the terrace for 4 o'clock as we're going to have a cream tea.'

'Yay!' we cheered.  Polar let us out of the bear bag and we skipped away down the steps into a very pretty part of the garden with neat borders full of blue, purple and silvery flowers and a big pond.  We were going to paddle our back paws in the pond until we saw how deep it was and that there were huge carp in it.

At first, we followed Polar and Grizzly, as the gardens were quite busy and we needed to get our bearings so we could find our way back to the tea terrace later.  They showed us the Geology Gallery, with fossils of ancient creatures and let us look at their map.

When Grizzly sat down for a nap on a shady seat and Polar went off to take photographs, we decided to split up and do some exploring.

'I'm going to explore the flower gardens,' said Hanley Bear.  'Look at those dahlias!'  He scurried off along the path to see them.

There were fabulous flowers in many different colours - Hanley even spotted one in Stoke City red and white.  At the far end of the dahlia walk he found a little path that seemed to lead somewhere very unexpected.

'I wonder if it's a long way to China and if I can be back by four o'clock?' he said to himself.  Being an adventurous little bear, he decided to find out. 

Meanwhile, Endon Bear did some climbing along the honeysuckle pergola to a big stone urn where he had a great view of the old house.  

Then he found a path which led to The Stumpery, which is a perfect place for a small bear who likes to climb things, as it is made from hundreds of old tree stumps.  

Endon enjoyed scrambling around on them, then he spotted something even better to climb - a watchtower on a big stone wall.  There we lots of uneven steps to climb to get up to the tower and more steps inside, then he had to scale the parapet at the top to see over it, but it was worth the effort.

'I can see the tops of all the trees from up here,' he cried.  Looking very carefully, he could also see a small figure moving about between some stone walls down below.  It was Hanley Bear.  Endon decided to climb down to meet him. 

I set off in a different direction to the other bears.  I took a turning between two high hedges and found myself face-to-face with a Sphinx!. 'I must be in Egypt!'  I gasped.  'I thought it was much further away than this from the maps in Grizzly and Polar's house.'

I found another pair of sphinxes and in between them was a doorway into a dark passageway.  I thought it might lead into a pyramid so I decided to be a brave bear and explore it, but it was very spooky and there was a strange animal idol inside.  I decided this was not a good place for small bears and made a run for it, out of what had suddenly turned into a Cheshire-style cottage and into some lovely pine woods.  

'This is proper bear country!' I said to myself.  'Hanley and Endon would like this.  I wonder where they are?'  I sniffed the breeze for the soft smell of fellow small bears.

Hanley and Endon thought they were in China.  Endon was climbing on the Great Wall and Hanley was keeping a look-out for pandas.  

Of course they weren't really, just as I hadn't really been to Egypt; they were in a China-themed garden, which was on the other side of a stone wall from my woods.  I climbed up and over and soon found my little bear friends, watching the big fish in another pond.  The best view was from a very pretty building where we found a bamboo seat perfect for small bear naps. 

'It's lovely here,' said Hanley Bear.  'But we're still a long way from the terrace and I think we're going to be late for our tea.'

'Oh no!' said little Endon.  'I like cream teas.'

Luckily for us, Polar and Grizzly came by just then.  Polar put us back in the bear bag and carried us through another spooky tunnel, along a narrow path by a little stream and past the pond full of big fish until we were back at the tea terrace, which saved our little legs a great deal of scurrying and skipping.

And we had a delicious tea too!