Light Night

Although we like playing in the snow, when it is very cold or night-time, we bears prefer to curl up in our lovely snug bear basket, watching programmes about nature on the television or having a sleep.  We were very surprised when, one night last week, Polar woke us from an early evening nap to say we were going out.

'But it's all cold and icy!' I said, pulling the covers up to my chin.

'I know, bears,' said Polar.  'But there's a festival going on in Burslem that I think you will want to see.'

Having a festival on a freezing evening in February seemed a strange idea to us bears, but we put on our best jumpers, woolly hats and duffle coats and got into our bear bag.  Soon we were in the car and off to Burslem.

Burslem is one of the Six Towns of Stoke-on-Trent.  Hanley took me there when we were campaigning for Stoke-on-Trent to become City of Culture and I remembered that it had some very nice old buildings, including the library, the School of Art and the Town Hall.  I told Endon about them and how clever the humans were who had built them.

'It's a shame it will be dark and you won't be able to see them very well,' I said.  

But I was wrong!  Some of the best buildings were all lit up, with films being projected onto them.  

'Wow!' went Hanley Bear.  'That's brilliant!'

We wanted to get out of our bag and explore, but Grizzly said there were too many people about and we might get trodden on.

'You'll get a better view from up on my shoulder,' Polar added.

All along the road where the School of Art is, there were lots of sculptures with flames in them, and a man pushing a funny little stove on wheels.  All the fiery things and the crowds of people helped to keep us warm, although Polar was very careful to keep our fur away from the flames.

There were more fiery sculptures outside the School of Art, which kept flaring up and making us jump.

'Let's go into the main square and find a good spot to watch the main event,' said Polar.   

Grizzly bought us tea and pies to keep us warm while we waited.  Soon we heard drumming and some pretty, tinkling music coming from behind us.

'Look!' said Endon.  'There's a giant made of stars or ice!'

We all gasped, because the graceful, sparkling giant was such a lovely sight.  We waved to it and watched as it started to climb some scaffolding on a shop, then walked through the crowd towards a stage.

On the stage were some drummers.  They had lights all over their drums and costumes and strange make-up on their faces.  We bears thought they were slightly scary and they were very loud.  We preferred the gentle music that went with the giant.  

The giant and the drummers did some dances together on the stage.  At the end, the big giant bowed to all the people, then all his lights went out and we could see that he was a huge puppet, operated by long poles held by clever people in dark clothes.  Endon was sad when he saw that the star giant wasn't a real creature but he thought the people who had made him look real were very clever indeed.

Polar had wanted to take lots more pictures, but found her camera battery had gone flat.  She took some film and a few stills with Grizzly's small camera, but she was cross that she hadn't checked hers before coming out, as she would have liked me to have better pictures of the giant for my blog.

'Maybe they will come back and do another show next year?' said Hanley Bear, as we went back to the car.  

I hope there will be lots more festivals and fun things to do this year, or I won't have anything to put in my blog!