Checking up on Uppie

On Monday, we went to Northwich with our human guardians, Polar and Grizzly.  We wanted to see how Uppie, our narrowboat, was getting on.  

Uppie is moored on the River Weaver, upstream from the town of Northwich, on an island between the cut to Hunt's Lock and the main channel of the river.  There are many other very interesting old boats moored around the island, and there are workshops and pieces of old machinery and lots of curious things on the island itself.  

We bears went there once before, but on a rainy day, so we hadn't been able to explore it.  This time, Polar let us out of our bag to look around.

'Be especially careful not to fall in the water, little bears!' she warned us.  'Even though it's not flooded today, there's a very strong current in the river still.'

We are sensible small bears, so we stayed well away from the river.  There were pots of paint and varnish to sniff, although we were very careful not to get any on our clothes or fur, and we could also smell sawn timber in a joiner's workshop.  Polar and Grizzly went inside, to talk to Mr Dorian the Joiner about some work they would like him to do inside Uppie.  We found some rusty winch-gear to climb on, which gave us a good view of the river without being too close.

'Can you see Uppie?' asked Endon.

'No, I can't,' I replied.  'Maybe Uppie is in Mr Steve's workshop?'

Mr Steve, the Boat Painter, had planned for Uppie to be repainted by now, but all the wet weather and nasty storms keep flooding the wet dock where he works.  If it is going to flood, Mr Steve has to move all his paints and tools and electrical things, like fans and heaters, out of the wet dock workshop.  Of course he can't work during a flood and then, after it has flooded, he has lots of cleaning up to do before he can start work again.  

We felt very sorry for Mr Steve and would have given him small bear hugs if he had needed them (and if he hadn't been wearing painty overalls) but Grizzly says he has a dog, called Ellie, to do hug duty.

Uppie wasn't in Mr Steve's workshop, because another boat was there, which he had very nearly finished.  It looked very smart and very shiny.  Polar told us that it was painted in similar colours to what they have planned for Uppie.

'Uppie is moored just outside, waiting to come in soon,' explained Grizzly, so we skipped along the bank to see.

'Oh no!' I gasped, when we saw our boat.

'Uppie's all orange!' cried Endon.  'Even orangier than the water in the canal at Harecastle!'

Mr Steve took most of Uppie's old paint off a few weeks ago, before the latest nasty floods and , without any paint, poor Uppie has started to rust!  

We all ran back to Polar, Grizzly and Mr Steve.  Mr Steve said we shouldn't worry about Uppie, as the thin layer of rust will easily clean off and leave him a nice surface onto which he can apply his primers and paint, with no grease or mill scale.  

Polar and Grizzly were reassured, but we were still rather anxious small bears.  Hanley Bear was giving Mr Steve hard stares and Endon had watery little eyes.

'Let's see what we can do to cheer you three up,' said Polar, snuggling us back into our bag.  'Maybe, there are some of those little bear-sized cakes in the supermarket, like the ones we got for Hanley Bear's Hug Anniversary when we were on the Weaver before.'

Just thinking of cakes made us all feel happier and, when Polar came back with a pack of little cherry tarts, we all cheered.  We had to wait until we were at home in our basket to eat them, but Polar made us a table out of one of her painted tins and allowed us a whole one each with our afternoon tea.  

'I'm sure Mr Steve knows what he's doing,' I said to the smaller bears, as we munched our cherry tarts.  'That boat in the workshop looked very nice.  But I do miss having trips on Uppie!'

We all agreed that we wanted to be boat bears again, as soon as possible, so should make sure we go with Grizzly and Polar to check on the work - and to see if there were any more special offer mini tarts or little cakes in Waitrose for us to eat!