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.