A Boaty New Year

It has been a very windy day today.  Although we time for a quick run in the garden, it is now too cold for small bears to play outdoors, so I am going to finish telling you about our Christmas cruise.

The morning after our visit to Westport Lake, Polar and Grizzly steered Uppie down the Trent and Mersey Canal to the marina at Etruria, mooring just outside.  They did some shopping, buying rice pudding for us and bringing us back a chocolate bear each.  While they were ashore, we tried to work out some of the clues in Polar's quiz book, but there were no questions about small bears or bear things.

The next day, we had lots of locks to work through.  We went through five in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, then one at Trentham, just on the edge of the city, then four more at Meaford.  Polar found a place to turn the boat not far from the last lock and we moored for the night opposite some houses with lots of pretty lights in their gardens.  

In the morning, we put our hats and coats on and Polar and Grizzly took us for a walk down into the town of Stone.  We loved this small boatyard and the pretty Gypsy caravan above the top lock.

We think a caravan like this would be a brilliant home for a hug of small bears.

There are four locks in Stone.  'Can we take Uppie down through these and go down to Shugborough?' I asked Grizzly, thinking how much my small bear friends would enjoy the journey.

'No!' cried Hanley Bear.  'Grizzly and I have to go to the match tomorrow!'

'And I have to go back to work the day after,' said Polar.  'You will have to show your friends the Trent Valley on another journey, Sonning - perhaps in the spring?'

I was quite sad about that but I know how much Hanley likes his football, so we worked back up the Meaford locks and moored close to the village of Barlaston for the night.  

We thought it would be fairly quiet there, but we bears had forgotten that it was New Years Eve.  We heard fireworks going off all around until very, very late.  In the morning, Polar and Grizzly steered up back to the mooring near the football ground and Hanley Bear went with Grizzly to get oatcakes from Mrs Kay's boat.

He enjoyed his oatcake very much but the same cannot be said for the football match, because Grizzly and Hanley's team lost by two goals to nil, and missed a penalty, which is the same as happened this weekend, although they did play very well last weekend.  Hanley says he will always support them, whatever happens.  He is a very loyal little bear.  Grizzly cheered them up with some Christmas cake when they got back after the game.

We stayed in Stoke for the next few days while Polar was at work, first at Etruria, then back at Westport Lake, before going back through the Harecastle Tunnel and mooring back at our wharf.  We were sad to leave our boat but looking forward to seeing how the garden was growing back at Polar and Grizzly's house, and having more adventures on land with them.  

Lots of things have been done to make the moorings in Stoke-on-Trent nicer than they used to be, and there are little solar lights in the towpaths to make it safer for walkers and cyclists using them in the early morning and evening.  We bears hope lots of boaters will come and visit our home city this year.