Soon after our visit to Grizzly's grandcubs, we made another visit to southern England, this time to see Polar's dad in Southampton, who was celebrating his 90th birthday.
We went by car this time. Polar and Grizzly's little old red car (called Pam, because the number plate includes PMA) does not like motorways very much, so we used 'A' roads. Polar's route took us through Lechlade, which is the furthest point up the Thames that you can go on a narrowboat.
We bears thought it looked a lovely place to visit and hope Polar and Grizzly will take us there on Uppie one day.
After that, we went over the Berkshire Downs and stopped at a place called Inkpen Beacon so Polar could take some photographs. We were very high up and could see for miles and miles!
We were very worried during the last stage of our journey, as there were funny noises from Pam's front wheels. Grizzly drove very carefully as he thought there was something wrong with the brakes, and he was right.
After we got to our destination and found a garage, the clever mechanics showed us that the callipers had seized up on the front driver's side wheel. Poor Pam had to stay at the garage all the next day and on Sunday morning to be repaired, but the garage did a great job. It was not too expensive and at least we were all safe.
Polar and Grizzly were staying with a friend in a place called Bishop's Waltham. In medieval times, the Bishop of Winchester had a palace there, which is how it got it's name. Polar decided not to take us there in case Endon climbed on the ruins and set a bad example to human cubs.
The day after they went to see Polar's dad (they went by taxi and forgot to take us!), we had a walk around the village. We bears loved the North Pond, which was restored by a team of hard-working local people, including Grizzly and Polar's friends. We watched the ducks, then we had a walk along a disused railway line which is now a footpath, and came back through the fields.
When Pam was repaired, it was time to go home. We had a special treat on the way, as Polar had arranged for us to visit some small bear friends who live near Newbury, which is not very far from Sonning, where I was found. We have been friends on Twitter for ages but we had not met 'in the fur' before.
The Berkshire Bears live with their human guardian, who we call Gecko. The biggest is Confused Bear, then there is Cinnamon Bear and the smallest is Little Brown Bear, known as LBB. Hanley likes to talk to him about football, as LBB (and his friends) all support Liverpool.
The Berkshire Bears live in a really old cottage which has a sunny courtyard garden, full of brightly-coloured flowers, herbs and trees in pots, which they help Gecko to look after.
Endon found an Acer tree to climb, while LBB proudly showed me some small-bear-sized tomatoes he had grown. They were very tasty!
Confused and Cinnamon told Hanley Bear that they loved the Gecko Garden, as it was so pretty and was a safe place for small bears to play. The bears liked the red flowers best, because it was their team's colour.
'I'm going to ask Polar to grow more red and white flowers in our garden, for Stoke City.' replied Hanley. 'As they're Southampton's colours too, she won't mind.'
We were sad when it was time to go but cheered when Gecko told us that they were coming up to stay near us soon and we would all be going to Trentham Gardens together.
Even though Pam had been repaired, Polar decided we would stay off the motorways on the way home too, so we took some 'B' roads over the Berkshire Downs.
We had a little picnic before the rain started, then had naps most of the way home, thinking of our friends the Berkshire Bears and looking forward to seeing them again soon.
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