Busy Boat Bears

As it was sunny and still last weekend, Polar and Grizzly thought it would be nice to take Uppie for a short cruise up the Macclesfield Canal.  Grizzly says it is his favourite canal, which is very convenient as it starts very close to where Uppie is moored.

As soon as we got aboard, we put on our life-jackets.  Then we helped Polar unpack our picnic lunch, including some mini stroopwafels for us!

Uppie's engine started first time and soon we were away, taking the sharp left turn under the bridge at Hardingswood Junction, passing the moored boats at Red Bull and cruising over the aqueduct over the Cheshire Locks.  

When Polar had finished making a cup of tea for her and Grizzly (who was steering), she told us she had a special treat for us. Because she could trust us to be sensible bears, we were on a narrow canal and it wasn't windy, we were all going to be allowed to sit in the lifebuoy on the roof!

'Yay!' we cheered.  We ran through the boat ahead of Polar and jumped up the steps to the rear deck, where Grizzly lifted us up onto the roof.

'Stay inside the big orange ring, little bears!' he said.  'If you fall off the roof and into the canal, we can rescue you with the boat hook, but you'll get very wet and cold.'

We didn't want to get wet and cold, so we did as we were told and stayed safely inside the lifebuoy.  We didn't mind, as we had super views from there of the trees and fields, houses and farms.  

We were rather scared when we saw two big buzzards circling above us but, with Polar and Grizzly standing right behind us, we knew we were safe.

After we had gone through the one small stop-lock on that part of the canal, we cruised on past Grizzly's favourite pub and the big house Ramsdell Hall, whose owners only let the canal be built through their land in return for having fancy railings put in along the towpath.  There are some moored boats nearby and a very muddy path to Little Moreton Hall.

Polar took over steering, while Grizzly went for a walk along the towpath.  After a mile or so, they swapped over and Polar had a walk, taking her camera with her so she could take pictures of us enjoying our boat trip. 

When Polar climbed aboard again, Grizzly went inside to read the paper.  He reads a newspaper called The Guardian, which I think must be printed specially for the guardians of small bears. 

We enjoyed sitting in the sunshine, listening to the birds singing and waving to animals and humans from our vantage point, as Polar steered us.  We recognised the moorings at Congleton where we stayed at Christmas, with the turn-over bridges at either end where the towpath changes sides.  

Soon after, we stopped for lunch, finding a space between a couple of boats on the embankment where we could see the railway viaduct. 

That was as far as we planned to go that day so, after lunch, Grizzly turned the boat around at the aqueduct and we started home.  We bears helped Polar put the lunch things away and, when she went back up on deck, we did some dusting and tidying.

'There are ladybirds everywhere!' said Endon.  'They must have been hibernating on the boat.'

'Polar could put them in her greenhouse to eat the greenfly on her geranium cuttings,' Hanley Bear suggested. 

'Don't you think they're happier on Uppie?' I asked him.

'No,' Hanley replied.  'I think the spiders have been eating them.  I've found some dead ones and ladybird wings with no ladybird!  I think they will be safer off the boat.'  Endon agreed that we should rescue the ladybirds. 

'Let's put them all in something, so we can take them home.'  I said.

We found a little plastic box, made little air-holes in the lid with our claws, then climbed around inside the boat catching all the ladybirds we could see.  Because we have soft paws, we didn't hurt them when we picked them up.  Soon, we had fifteen in our box.

'Well done, bears!' said Polar when she saw what we had done.  She gave us all hugs, and took us back to sit in the lifebuoy for the journey home. 

We had enjoyed a lovely day afloat and were quite sad when we got back to our moorings, but Grizzly said we would have more boat adventures soon and some non-boating adventures too, so we have lots to look forward to.

We are very lucky small bears!