A lovely Autumn Garden

We bears have recently enjoyed another little holiday with our human guardians, Polar and Grizzly, which was a lot of fun.  We visited a place called Cornwall, where we stayed with some of their friends and, later, Grizzly's sister's family.  

As it is a long way from Staffordshire, Polar decided we should break up the journey and stop overnight in Devon, at a nice small pub with a thatched roof.  Polar picked it as it was very close to the gardens at Rosemoor, run by the Royal Horticultural Society, which she was very keen to visit.

'It's a very big site,' she said to us, as she carried us to the entrance in our special bear bag.  'You can run about and explore but try to keep us in sight and then, if you want to save your paws, you can always jump back into your bag and let me carry you.'

The first thing we noticed when we came into the garden was a lovely smell of apples, coming from a display by the entrance.  As soon as Polar let us out of our bag, Hanley climbed up to sniff them.

'No nibbling, Hanley Bear!' warned Polar.  'Although I don't expect they will mind you eating any you find on the ground later.'

Hanley, who was feeling hungry, as usual, ran off to look for the fruit garden.  

Endon and I kept closer to our humans and started to explore the flower gardens.  The trees and shrubs looked beautiful, with colourful berries, pretty bark and, of course, glorious autumn leaves.  

There were lovely roses to admire and to sniff and we loved the bright colours in the 'hot' garden.  Hanley and Endon found plants they could climb for a better view.

I found a trough with some small alpines in, that made a perfect small bear garden.  I showed it to Polar and suggested that we bears could make our own little garden in a big pot when we got home.
'That's a lovely idea, Sonning,' she said.  'There might be a corner of the patio where we could put one.'

I was very pleased about that and skipped away to tell the other bears.  Hanley and Endon had found a play area for human cubs with big insect sculptures in it.  

We had lots of fun climbing on them, especially the woodlouse, then we went in different directions to explore again.  I found some very pretty leaves to skip through and roll in but Hanley and Endon found even more exciting things to do.  

Endon went climbing in a ferny glade and saw a lovely waterfall and Hanley discovered a dinosaur skeleton!

It was a long way to the top of the hill after that, so we scurried back to Polar and Grizzly and had a lift in our bear bag up to the arboretum, which is a collection of trees from all over the world.  We jumped out of our bag to play in the leaves again.  

After lots of rolling down the hill and running on the grass, Polar gathered us up and put us back in our bag as it was time to go.

We were very sad small bears to leave Rosemoor, as it was such a beautiful garden, but Polar says she would like to visit again next year, in the spring, so hopefully we will be able to see it again.  

'Cheer up, little bears!' said Grizzly.  'We are going to visit some friends who have been reading your small bear adventures - and they live beside the sea, so you can go to the beach tomorrow!'

We all cheered and then we sang happy small bear songs for the rest of our journey into Cornwall.