I hope you enjoyed Hanley Bear's football report. He had lots of fun writing it and hopes to do more in future, but today it's back to me, Sonning Bear, to tell you about our latest adventure.
On Saturday, Polar look us bears out for the day. Grizzly was poorly with a cold, so he stayed at home. We all gave him hugs, then Polar put us in the bear bag and drove us to Etruria in Stoke-on-Trent, where there is a canal junction, an industrial museum and lots of locks, including a 'staircase' of two locks together just after you go onto the Caldon Canal.
During the summer, a canal festival is held there. We thought one might be happening when we arrived at the weekend, as there were Canal and River Trust gazebos all along the water's edge. Polar explained there was something else very special happening that we would like to see, but first, it was time for an early lunch.
'Yay!' cheered Hanley Bear. 'It's the Oatcake Boat!'
We jumped out of our bag and ran along the roof of Mrs Kay's boat to the serving hatch, where we could sniff the oatcakes cooking and watch as Polar queued up with the other customers. Polar bought us a scrumptious cheese and mushroom oatcake to share, although I think Hanley would have eaten it all himself if we had let him.
'You had better get back in your bag for the next part of our day,' said Polar, when we had finished our lunch. 'We're going to see the staircase locks being repaired - and we're going to go right down inside them.'
'Won't we get all wet?' asked Endon.
'Do we have to wear diving gear?' I asked, wondering where we would get that from.
'No bears,' Polar replied. 'All the water has been pumped out so the C&RT people can do their work. We can stay perfectly dry, although we will have to be careful as there are metal steps to climb up and down, which is why you need to stay in your bag and be carried for now.'
However, it soon got quite cramped in our bag, because Polar was given a lovely book about allotment gardening from the Community Food Network, which had to go in the bag with us. Polar spent a while chatting to them about potatoes, which made Hanley Bear impatient, so he climbed on top of the book for a better look.
'There's a repair boat by the bottom gates,' he told us. 'And there's loads of scaffolding and fencing around the locks too.'
Polar took us right past the locks to the Bedford Street Bridge for a look down into the locks before we went into the site. She pointed out how nicely the bridge had been repaired; it used to look rusty and ugly, but it is very smart now!
Then it was time for the main part of our adventure. The first long flight of steps took us down into the top lock. On the way down, we could see there were planks damming the canal where the top gate should be and there were huge new balance beams waiting to be fitted to the gates.
Hanley Bear climbed out of our bag for a closer look, while Polar pointed out the cill and the big metal plate that stops the bow of a narrowboat rubbing on the masonry when coming up.
Soon we were well below the waterline. It was quite frightening to think how much water was underneath us when we came through in our boat and it reminded us why we had to be good bears in locks, never be silly and always wear our life-jackets.
One of the C&RT men was talking about the repairs being made to the massive middle gates and how they carefully trimmed the wood to get a snug fit between them, so all the water wouldn't leak out. Polar let us sit on the gate while we listened and several people took pictures of us, so we were glad we were smartly dressed.
Looking down, we could see one of the ground paddles, which lets the water in and out of the lock, close up - usually, these are right under the water (and the water is murky), so you don't see them.
Polar carried us to the far end of the locks, where the bottom one leads out onto the canal. The boat Hanley had seen earlier had a pump on it, for pumping all the water out of the lock that was leaking into it through the stop planks.
After we left the lock, Polar carried us to the Etruria Industrial Museum. We bears wanted a look around but she said we didn't have time, as we would have to go home to check on Grizzly soon, but we could have a cup of tea and some cake in the café.
There were some other trading boats outside the museum, including a boat lady selling ornaments and pretty sparkly things. While Polar was looking at those, we bears went to explore a strange piece of machinery.
We didn't know what it was for, but it was fun to climb on!
Then it was time to go home. We waved to Mrs Kay and all the C&RT people, jumped back in our bag and went home to tell Grizzly all about our adventure.
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