Tea and Cakes for Volunteers

Last week it was Volunteers' Week and there was a tea party at the Citizens Advice office where Polar works, for their volunteers.  Because we have been Bearnefits Champions and helped Polar at her community events, she said we could come to work with her and join in.

We were very excited about having tea and cake with the other volunteers and Polar said we could go out in the Secret Garden too, so we put on our Potteries Gold waistcoats and best boat clothes.  However, when we got to the office, we found that the tea table was across the door to the garden rather than in it, because it was a damp day with rain forecast.

We could see the garden out of the window but although it looked very leafy and good to explore, we were much more interested in the cakes on the table!

While Polar was talking to one of her colleagues, we jumped down from the desk she had sat us on and started to sniff the food.

There was fruit cake and cupcakes, a lovely chocolate sandwich cake, shortbread biscuits, scones and fresh strawberries, and it all looked absolutely delicious!

Hanley Bear started nibbling the edge of a piece of shortbread, I scooped some cream and jam out of the chocolate cake and Endon was picking some raisins out of the fruit cake, when Polar saw what we were doing.  She gathered us all up from the table.

 'Bad bears!' she scolded.  'The party hasn't started yet.  You have to wait for the others to arrive.'

'Boo!' I said.  'What if the human volunteers eat everything and leave nothing for small bears?'

'There's plenty here for everyone,' she replied.  'And it needs to look nice when the volunteers get here.  They won't want to eat things which already have small teeth marks in them.'

'More for us!' chuckled Hanley.  Polar gave him a hard stare, even harder than a small bear hard stare, and he went very quiet.

'We are sorry we were naughty bears,' said Endon.  Hanley and I nodded in agreement and drooped our ears to show we were sad.

Polar took us to her office to wait in her bag for the party while she did some work.  Before the party was due to start, she took us up to look out of the top floor window at the garden.

 

'If you behave yourselves, I'll bring you in another day and you can have a proper look at it,' she said.

We were very good bears after that. We met some of the other volunteers and a nice lady called Irene patted our heads and told us that she had seen our pictures and read our adventures on Facebook.  

We had to leave before the party finished, as Polar had to go out to talk to some people at a college, so we didn't get to try everything, but we had a nice surprise when we came home, as Polar had saved us a cupcake from the party, all for ourselves!  

We decided to be good bears and to share it with Grizzly although, by the time we had taken a mouthful each, Grizzly's share was quite small.  We don't think he minded too much.  As humans say, it's the thought that counts!

Back to the Boat Festival

It is a cold and wet day today, even though it is June and supposed to be the summer.  Although we say 'Boooo!', because we can't go out and have Small Bear Adventures, it is good in a way, because it encourages me to write up the adventures we have already had.

We bears are glad that it wasn't like this last week, because we went to the Etruria Boat Festival again.  We were going to help out on the Inland Waterways Association stall but first, Polar wanted to visit her friend Shug's new food stall in Stoke Market.

Before we even went into the market, our keen little bear noses picked up lovely spicy smells coming from the stove in the colourful stall.

'Yay!  Samosas!' cheered Hanley Bear.  He persuaded Grizzly to buy us one each for our lunch and some chicken curry for tea, which came with a naan bread so big we could all have sat on top of it.  We could hardly wait for lunchtime!

Polar promised to bring us back one day, so we could have a cup of Indian 'Chai' tea and some cake but today, we had to run as we were needed at the boat festival.

As always, there were lots of brightly-painted traditional boats, as well as canoes for hire and lots of craft and food stalls.  Grizzly and Polar's friends were under a big white gazebo with the Inland Waterways logo on it and had mugs, mats, books and pens to sell.

We decided that the red brick pattern would suit Hanley Bear, as he is interested in industrial history and likes red as it is Stoke City's colour.  The green leaf pattern would be for Endon, as he loves nature (we all do, of course) and the blue water pattern would be for me, as I was found by the River Thames.  Unfortunately, we hadn't brought our pocket money with us, but next time we want to get a notebook each so we have somewhere to write about our adventures when we are out on Uppie.

There were lots of other nice things on our stall, most made by our clever friend Mrs Anne, including a whole box of knitted cats and loads of little lucky dip presents for human cubs.  She had even made some bookmarks with pictures on - and some were of me! 

During the morning, some film people came to talk to the volunteers.  They interviewed Grizzly and Polar, who told them about my articles in our Knobsticks magazine, and how I met the other bears, so they filmed us too.  I wonder if we will be famous bears?

After we had been filmed and helped to sell some things on the stall, we wanted to see the boats and find out what else was going on.  Polar said it was too busy for us to explore on our own, so we went with her, in our bear bag, to have a look around.

I did get out to watch a boat going through the very deep top lock and, on the way back, Hanley Bear saw a sign for the Oatcake Boat.  'Can we have oatcakes now?' he asked.  'I'm hungry!'

'We've got samosas, Hanley,' Polar reminded him.  'Anyway, Mrs Kay is very busy so it will be a long wait to be served.'

Mrs Kay told us later that she had made five hundred oatcakes for that day and had sold them all before the end of the day, and we heard that Mrs Shug had sold all her lovely Indian food too!

Some of the boat people let us climb on their boats to look at the lovely painting on them.  Polar wants to learn how to paint castles, so we looked for some really good ones for her to photograph.

The music tent was right at the top of the field this year, which was a good place for it as people could picnic outside while they listened to the bands, or buy tasty things from the nearby food stalls.  Smelling food again made us all hungry, including Polar, so we went back to munch our delicious samosas and then had naps curled up in Polar's coat while the humans carried on looking after our stall.

It's exciting to think that we will soon be enjoying another boat adventure - on our boat!  Hurray!

A Visit to the Dorothy Clive Garden

We often go to visit the lovely gardens at Trentham but last week, we went with our human guardians to see a different garden, called the Dorothy Clive garden. 

The story behind the garden is quite sad, because a nice man who owned the land in the past had the garden made for his wife, when she was very poorly, so she would have somewhere pretty to spend her last days.  Her name was Dorothy Clive and the garden was named after her.

There are flower beds, grassy lawns and a big pond to explore near the entrance, a café and gift shop, then there is a woodland area around what was once a quarry, full of flowering shrubs around a waterfall.

We bears wanted to see the wildlife and woodland area first so, after lunch, Polar showed us a little map of the site.  She explained where she and Grizzly planned to be for the next couple of hours.

'Meet us at the waterfall at four o'clock and we'll all go to the café for a cream tea,' she said. 

We all cheered, then scurried off into the woods.  After inspecting the bug hotel for our insect friends, bees and beetles, we found a path which led to one of the loveliest things I had ever seen in a garden.  

'Look at this, bears!' I called to Hanley and Endon.  'Isn't it beautiful?'

'It's the laburnum arch,' said Hanley Bear.  'I saw it on Polar's map.  Let's go and explore!'

Under the arch everything seemed to be bathed in sunshine.  We ran along the path, looking up at all the bright flowers above us and thinking what lucky bears we were to see something so pretty.

There were neat little shrubs and tall purple pom-pom flowers on either side of us.  Hanley Bear climbed one of the shrubs and sniffed one of the big purple flowers.  He said it smelled of onion!

'They're like very big versions of the chives we have along the edge of our bear garden,' he said.   

A little way from what we named the sunshine arch, we found a shrub with sweet-smelling flowers that was very good for climbing.  I couldn't decide whether the pink or the orange smelled nicest, as they were both really nice.

In fact, there were dozens of pretty scented shrubs.  Later, Polar told us they were azaleas and rhododendrons.

We had lots of fun climbing things and exploring the woods.  Eventually, we found the waterfall.

'Is it time for our cream tea yet?' asked little Endon, whose small tummy was starting to rumble.

'It might be,' I said.  'There's Grizzly and Polar!' 

We ran out from where we had been sitting in the ferns and called them.

Polar picked us up and gave us a big hug for being good bears and finding the waterfall at just the right time.

There was a seating area outside the café, surrounded by pretty flowers full of lots of bees but bees are good, unlike wasps, and don't try to steal your jam or cream, and we enjoyed our cream tea without being pestered by them.

Then Polar carried us back to the car, past lots of lovely flower beds full of beautiful plants.  Some them had nice smells and some didn't, but we bears were pleased to see how much the bees enjoyed them all.

'I hope we have bees on our flowers soon!' I said to Polar.  She said she thought we would have to wait a few weeks yet for them to grow.

'Can we make a bug hotel at home?' Endon asked.

Grizzly said he thought that was a great idea, so we bears started planning it on the way home, although we had done so much running and climbing, and had such a nice tea, that we soon fell fast asleep.