It is very windy and wet today, so not a good day for having Small Bear Adventures. Instead, it is a good day for writing about Small Bear Adventures and, as we have had lots recently, I had better get to work!
The weekend after our brilliant day out on the Severn Valley Railway, Polar and Grizzly took us bears with them on a drive towards Manchester. Hanley Bear thought he knew where he was going, as he had been with Polar to a conference in Manchester. He started chattering away about the busy city roads and very tall buildings we would see, until we turned off of the main road and he had to admit he was lost.
Polar and Grizzly weren't lost. They were heading for a National Trust property at Styal called Quarry Bank Mill, where there are lovely gardens and grounds and a working cotton mill. Grizzly told us we would have to stay in our bear bag inside the mill, as there was moving machinery that might trap or crush silly small bears, but we could run about and explore the gardens.
These were full of beautiful late summer flowers and there was fruit and vegetables too. Our favourites were the big orange pumpkins, which we could climb on and slide down. We nibbled some tasty apples and salad leaves, which was a little bit naughty of us as the gardeners had worked very hard putting fences and gates up to stop small animals like us getting in and eating their crops.
Outside the garden was a steep, wooded valley with a fast-flowing river at the bottom. We loved it here, as there were trees to climb, springy moss to jump on and more pretty flowers to sniff and admire.
There was a big statue of a crocodile too. We thought it was a real one at first and were very scared that it might eat us, or even eat Polar and Grizzly, until we saw some human cubs climbing on it.
Polar put us back in the bear bag when we got to the mill. We read some very sad things about how very bad humans kept other humans as slaves and made them grow and pick the cotton, and how poor little human cubs had to work in the mill, dashing about between the machines to pick up loose cotton and fluff, and often getting hurt. We hoped the human cubs would have had their own small bears, to hug and comfort them at the end of their busy and dangerous day when they went back to their apprentice house.
We were glad there were no human cubs working in the mill now, just very clever grown-ups who tell visitors about how the machines spin the fluffy cotton into thread, then weave the threads into fabric. It is all very ingenious but very, very noisy!
We covered our ears with our paws when the machines started working. The electricity to power everything comes from a modern water-turbine but the original water wheel and the old steam engines are still in place under the spinning and weaving floor.
Some steam engines were working, making hissing and gurgling noises, which we bears thought was great fun, although we stayed well away from the hot metal and steam, in case we burnt our fur.
After tea and cake, Polar and Grizzly went to the shop and bought some small squares of fabric made at the mill. Polar says the stripy ones are for making us pyjamas and that she might make us new aprons out of the ones with vegetable patterns on, but not until Christmas, as she has to take up the legs of some new trousers Grizzly has bought first. We keep checking the bag to see if she has started making our things yet, but the special cotton is still in its bundle of small squares. We will have to be patient bears!
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