A Christmas Day Walk

 

I am a very busy small bear today, writing up our Christmas week snowy adventures, and I'm going to start with what we did on Christmas Day.  We bears woke up early but stayed in our basket until our human guardians were awake, telling Waverley about some of the things we had done in previous years.

Then Polar got us up and gave us Christmas Day hugs, before carrying us downstairs for a nice hot bowl of porridge, made by Grizzly, with some cream and honey.  After that, we wanted to see what Christmas presents there were for us and for our human guardians, but Polar and Grizzly had other plans.

Usually, if they aren't on our narrowboat, Polar and Grizzly have a walk after their Christmas dinner but because it was sunny in the morning, we had our walk immediately after breakfast.  We bears put on our hats and Christmas jumpers and squeezed into our bear bag, making sure that little Waverley was safely tucked in with Endon in the front pocket, so he had a good view.

This was the first time Waverley had been for a walk around the village where Polar and Grizzly live, which is on top of a hill in North Staffordshire.  It was a frosty morning and fairly clear, so we could point out interesting things and special places to him.

To the north, we showed him Mow Cop, with the folly castle ruin on top, and the big radio-telescope at Jodrell Bank.  We bears haven't been to visit the Mow Cop folly yet, so maybe we can go next year.

Most of the houses in the village were built in the 1930s or 1940s (like our house) but there are also older terraced houses, built for the miners to live in when there were pits here, and this very handsome Georgian House right on top of the hill, opposite the church and just behind the medieval cross.

We bears wondered if there were wild bears in the area when the cross was first put up!  We asked Polar who was King of England in 1253.

'It was Henry III little bears,' she said.

We asked if he was a good king.  Polar she said he wasn't one of the really bad ones, but that he certainly wasn't 'good' in the way small bears mean, as in kind, sharing and friendly. 

'He owned Beeston Castle, which you can just see in the distance looking west across Cheshire,' she said, lifting up our bear bag.  You might just make it out in the photograph as a bump on the horizon just above the eaves of the house on the right-hand side.

One of the funny things in the village is that there are two pubs right next to each other on top of the hill and just across the road from the church.  Polar and Grizzly didn't want to risk a Christmas drink, however, and set off back home, after showing Waverley the old farmhouse and barn next to the church.

While Polar cooked the dinner (which included three different varieties of potato) we looked for things to decorate the Christmas cake.  We could only find one little Christmas bell decoration, so made mini Christmas trees from sprigs of rosemary and put some bottle stoppers Polar said had come from Hungary on top of the cake too, as we thought they looked Christmassy.

After Christmas dinner, Old Bunny and Nutley Squirrel, Polar's first anipal friends, came downstairs to spend Christmas with us.  They are both very old and quite frail, so can't come out on adventures with us and can only play very gently.  We let them help us open our Christmas card and our presents.

 

Polar had ordered us another book for our libeary and a whole box of little bear-sized chocolate bars, which we decided we would share with the old anipals.

'And we'll share them with Polar and Grizzly,' Hanley said.  'I wanted us to buy Grizzly a new flat cap to wear to football, but we haven't been able to go shopping - or to football - most of this year.'

'And I wanted us to buy Polar some new gardening gloves,' said Endon.  'So she doesn't hurt her hands when she's pruning the thorny shrubs.'

'Don't worry about presents for us,' said Grizzly.  'Our best present this year has been having you little bears to keep us cheerful through these difficult times.' And Polar agreed.

So we all hugged, then Polar tucked us up in the Bear Basket.  With Old Bunny and Nutley Squirrel as well, it was a little crowded, but at least it was warm and cosy, and we would have more adventures together the next day.

 

 

 
 

Football Season's Greetings, with Hanley Bear

Ay up, everyone!  Sonning says I can write a post for his blog, so here's one about Saturday afternoons at our house ( and sometimes Tuesday or Wednesday evenings too).

If it's a wet day and we can't play in the garden or go for a walk, Sonning, Endon and I get some exercise jumping on Polar and Grizzly's bed.  This is a lot of fun as well as being good for us, although we are too small to tidy the bed up afterwards, so Polar or Grizzly has to do that.

But, whatever we are doing, when it's time for the match, I fetch the other bears' scarves out of the Bear Basket for them, and we all set off downstairs to Grizzly's workshop.

Grizzly makes sure the workshop is nice and warm for us all by putting on the heater, then he puts our seat next to the radio, so we don't miss any of the action.  He tunes it in to Radio Stoke - and then it's time for kick-off.  Yay!!

Grizzly has plenty of things to do while he's listening, like adding extra little details to his model engines and building 'OO' scale narrowboats.  Grizzly has made some of the boats from kits and others from scratch, using balsa wood.  One even has a little model engine inside that you can see through the side hatch.

At half-time, Polar brings in a cup of tea for Grizzly and a big stroopwafel for us bears to share.  If Stoke are winning comfortably, it is nice to relax and talk about the game but, if they are losing or drawing, or only one goal ahead, I get very nervous.

In the second half, I like to stand right beside the radio, sending maximum Bear Luck thoughts to all the players.  I'm sure this helps a lot although Sonning isn't sure it makes that much difference.

Last season, we didn't play very well until the last few games but this season has been very different, partly thanks to Mr Michael O'Neill our manager, who seems to have worked out some good new tactics for us, and partly because the players have been working really hard.  We are in the top half of the table and very close to the 'play-off' places, so it's possible we might get promoted back to the Premiership.

'We need a little more Bear Luck,' I told Sonning and Endon, after we lost our game against Cardiff earlier this month - and then we were joined by an extra bear, apparently on a free transfer from Celtic or Rangers (he won't say which, in case it upsets anyone).  

Waverley is very small but that doesn't mean he is less lucky than a big bear, so I made sure he had his own Stoke City scarf ready for our next game.  

And we won it!  Yaaayyy!!!  Even though he hasn't had any of Mrs Kay's oatcakes yet, Waverley is now officially a Stoke City Lucky Bear!

Of course it would be even better if we could watch the game in the ground again, and give hard stares to Stoke's opponents (and sometimes the referee), but it's not safe for Grizzly yet, so we will carry on cheering on the team from the workshop.

Come on you Mighty Potters!

Putting up the Christmas Tree

 Because it has been such a strange, sad and gloomy year, we bears decided to try to cheer it up by encouraging our human guardians to put their Christmas decorations up early.

Polar and Grizzly have a thirty year-old artificial tree which they bought when they lived in their first house, long before they had bears to look after.  It lives in the loft between Christmases.  Hanley, who lives anything technical, enjoys helping to put it together.

There are three separate sections which Polar has to fit together, as they are far too big for small bears to lift.  Our job is to straighten out all the branches, as it gets crunched up when it is in its bags in the loft.

'I think they need more straightening than usual,' I told Hanley.

'They probably do, duck,' he answered.  'Don't forget, they used a different one last year, so it's had two years in the loft!'

Little Waverley joined Hanley on top of the middle section to make sure the top section was properly fitted, then Endon helped him to climb right to the top of the tree with the sparkly snowflakes we put at the top.

'Don't put any more decorations on yet!' ordered Hanley.  'We need to check the lights and put them on next.'

This was another Hanley Bear job, of course!  Polar bought some new ones in the sales last January and Hanley had been itching to try them out, because they can be set to flash or twinkle, as well as to just shine, but we found the flickery options soon made our eyes feel funny!  Hanley switched the lights off so we could all recover.

When he was feeling better, Hanley slung the coil of lights over his arm and scrambled up the tree with them, spacing them out as best he could to cover the whole tree.  Then he switched them on again, and we all cheered.

Now it was time to add the rest of the decorations.  We let Waverley take the small baubles for the top of the tree.  He's a very good climber and, like wild cubs, quite fearless when he's high up.

Polar bags the baubles up in sets of different colours, so she can do a different colour-scheme each year, but we decided we wanted to put a mixture of all different colours on the tree and picked out the most sparkly ones.

Endon took the green ones, Hanley went for red (of course) and gold, and I put the silver ones on.  Then we found some strings of shiny beads and the tinsel, and added some of those.

When we had finished, we called Polar and Grizzly back in from the kitchen.

'Oh bears, that's lovely!' said Grizzly.  'It's just what we needed to cheer up a gloomy winter's afternoon!'  And Polar gave us all hugs.

There were still lots of baubles, tinsel and another artificial Christmas tree left over.  'Are those going back in the loft?' I asked.

'Not yet, little bears,' said Polar.  'I have something planned for these.'

But you will have to wait and see what that is!