Sonning - the Bear on a Boat.: Three Bears and Four Counties: Part one

We bears are very lucky, because our human guardians have a narrowboat called Uplander II, known as Uppie for short. We have had lots of boating adventures aboard Uppie and of course I was found by Polar and Grizzly while they were boating.

Uppie spent most of the last year being looked after by Mr Steve the boat-painter, firstly at Northwich on the River Weaver and then at his new dry dock in Middlewich, but we finally got to have a boating adventure again at the end of last month.

On September 17th - which is a celebration day for us because it's the anniversary of Hanley Bear joining our hug of small bears - Polar and Grizzly worked Uppie through the three narrow locks in the middle of Middlewich, passing Mr Steve's yard.

The direct route home would have been to carry on up the Cheshire Locks to Kidsgrove, a journey we bears have made several times, but this time, they turned right along a funny little stretch of water called the Wardle Canal, up through another lock and onto the Middlewich Arm of the Shropshire Union Canal.

We hadn't been that way before, so sat in the cratch, watching with great curiosity as we cruised under some little bridges, before coming to a halt. Polar and Grizzly had decided to stop to visit some friends who live by the canal and have a cup of tea in their garden, but they got hard stares from us bears when they got back, as they had also enjoyed crumpets and jam, and had neither come back to fetch us, nor brought any back for us.

'Don't be cross, little bears,' said Polar, when we moored up for the night just above another lock. 'We're going to have a nice dinner with you all for Hanley's Hug Day - he's asked for veggie curry with naan bread and Stoke-on-Trent beer, to celebrate Stoke City winning their League Cup game against Wolves.'

'Yay!' cheered Hanley. He's only supposed to sip the bubbles on top of Grizzly's beer, but he managed to sneak some beer too.

Polar had brought a hamper basket aboard to be our Boat Bear Basket, and put a pretty cushion made by a friend in it, so we would be warm and comfortable at night. It's big enough to store all our boating things too, like our life-jackets, hats and scarves.

Soon we had snuggled down to sleep but, as soon as it was light, we were up and dressed in our boating hats, and settled into our seat in the cratch, which was my old bunk when I was the only boat bear on Uppie.

We saw lots of new sights, like a building that had once been stables for boat horses, and we had to hold on tight while we went up two more locks.

After lunch, we reached Barbridge Junction, where we joined the main line of the Shropshire Union Canal - or 'Shroppie', as some boaters call it. If we had turned right, that would have taken us towards Chester, but Grizzly turned left, towards Nantwich and, eventually, Wolverhampton.

It was a lovely sunny day, but a little windy for us to go up on the roof, so we stayed in the cratch, enjoying the views and waving to the people and animals we saw.

Polar showed us where a flight on locks led up to the Llangollen Branch. 'If we went that way, we would eventually get to that big aqueduct we saw at Pontcysyllte,' Polar said. 'We might go that way again one day, but you'll have to be very good and sensible bears if we do.'

During the afternoon, we were lucky enough to get quite close to a kingfisher, perched on a branch after catching and eating a fish, and Polar took a picture of a small copper butterfly which landed on the canal map.

It was starting to get late when we reached Nantwich. Polar and Grizzly decided to look for moorings away from the town, but as we passed through we saw a marvellous statue of a boat horse.