Bears and Bulbs

The day before our Manifold Valley adventure, our humans took us to Trentham Gardens again.  Polar wanted to see the tulip display but she was worried that the flowers would have been smashed to pieces by the stormy weather at the weekend.

As you can imagine, she was delighted to see that the bulbs still looked lovely.  We were pleased too, because we love playing hide-and-seek in the flowers at Trentham.

Polar sat us on one of the benches near the rose garden where we could admire the gardens, while she and Grizzly took some photos.  We bears jumped down into the flowerpots to take a closer look at the blooms.

The tulips were really pretty, some with rounded cups and some with pointy petals, while the small white daffodils had a lovely scent.  They were Endon's favourite.

There weren't enough flowers in the pots for us to hide from each other, so we ran up to the terrace to see if we could play there instead. 

That was a much better place for hide-and-seek, as there are lots of little box hedges just high enough to hide a small bear and more terracotta pots to sneak behind.  We had lots of fun here, taking it in turns to look for each other among the wonderfully bright flowers.

Eventually, Polar and Grizzly gathered us back to the bear bag and carried us through to formal gardens to the café, for lunch, before we set off around the lake.

We stopped to look at more pots of tulips and even little boats with spring bulbs in them.

'Don't step back, bears!' warned Polar, as she took our photograph.

Soon we were in the woods again, our favourite part of the garden.  Polar put the bear bag down so we could climb out and play again, climbing on some logs and nosing into their hollow cores.

Then we went to see what new flowers were blooming in the woodland meadows.  Everything was bathed in soft, green light from the fresh beech leaves just unfurling on the trees above us.

I found some lovely springy grass to bounce in, while the smaller bears made dens in the new leaves.

We were amazed at how many different shapes and colours of leaves there were, with lots of little blue and yellow flowers on delicate stalks popping up in between them.

We had lots of time to play, because Polar was busy taking photographs.  There are lots of swans at Trentham, including a pair of black swans with four little fluffy cygnets, about the same size as us bears!

There are very fancy ducks and grebes too, including great crested grebes and this very dapper mandarin duck.

Polar came to fetch us after she had finished taking her pictures. 

'I hope you've all had fun, little bears,' she said.  'We've seen lots of birds while you've been playing, including a kingfisher.'

'We're very lucky bears to have such a brilliant place to play,' Hanley Bear said, and we all agreed.  

'I wonder what flowers will be out next time we come?' I asked.  

We'll have to wait and see, won't we?