Endon's First Finding Day

Last weekend was a very special one for us bears, as we went back to the village of Endon, where we first met Endon Bear, 

We were there for the Well Dressing, as Polar was selling her painted things in the craft tent.  Before it got too busy, we went to see the well.  It had been decorated with panels of flowers pressed into clay and, this year, the pictures were all of things that had happened in 1969, long before we bears we born.  

There was Concord and the QE2 and, on separate little panels made by the school, pictures about the men who landed on the moon.

We love looking at the Well Dressing but we had promised to help Polar set up her stall so, after having a quick drink from the well, we ran back up the hill to the tent

Polar had painted lots of pretty things and, fortunately, most of them were small enough for us to move around once she put them out on the table.  Hanley Bear wanted to put the blue watering can in the middle, but I said the green jugs and pots would look better.

'No fighting, little bears!' said Polar, when we started growling at each other.  'However we arrange things today, we'll lay them out differently tomorrow, and differently again on Monday.'

Hanley Bear agreed to leave the green things in the middle for now.  He asked Polar to make him a notice to wear, so people would know we bears were not for sale, as there were bears for sale on some other stalls.

'Polar won't sell us, will she?' asked Endon, when he saw all the other bears.

'Definitely not,' I told him.  'She and Grizzly love us too much to do that!'

Polar was very busy painting things all day, so we looked after the things for sale, with help from Grizzly.  We didn't like swapping the pretty painted things for funny pieces of metal or paper, that humans call 'money'.  We would like to have kept them all to decorate our narrowboat, or swapped them for other pretty things or tasty snacks.

We laid the stall out differently each morning, as we sold things or Polar painted new ones.  After the first day, there was space on the table for Grizzly to set up a little model, showing a canal wharf and a boat, which we played with on Sunday, when it was quiet.

'There are lots of small bears on the table next to us,' Grizzly said, seeing that we were getting bored.  'Why not have a chat with them?'

We were glad Grizzly told us, because they were helping to raise funds for the West Midlands Air Ambulance while they were waiting to be adopted by human cubs.

They told us that their little red helicopter rescued sick and injured people from hard-to-reach places, like the hills and mountains, or the middle of motorways when all the traffic was jammed up, and flew them to hospital.

'We saw your humans and their helicopter when we were on our boat last year,' said Hanley.  'Would you rescue us if we were poorly bears?'

The Air Ambulance Bears said they would, so we bought some things for Grizzly's grandcubs from their stall  and gave them hugs, and said we hoped they were adopted by nice human cubs soon.

On Monday, there were more people about, including some who were even taller than Polar!  They lifted us up and carried us around the tent - it was very exciting and almost like being in the Air Ambulance bears' helicopter. 

When we got back, we found that Polar had made up a little notice about us, so people could see pictures of our adventures and maybe read about us on my blog, like you're doing now!  

'We're famous bears!' cheered Endon.

In the afternoon, lots of old cars came to the site and we went out to look at them.  We thought they would be fun for small bears to drive, if they were a little bit smaller.

At the end of the day, we helped Polar to pack all the painted things that were left back into their bags, then Grizzly drove us home over the hills to our house, where we celebrated Endon's first anniversary of his Finding Day with chocolate cake. 

We are very lucky bears!