A Sunny Winter Day at Trentham Gardens

It's a very, very windy day today, so not at all suitable for small bears to be outdoors.  Fortunately, most days this month have been much nicer and about a week and a half ago, we had a lovely day out at Trentham Gardens.

The weather was quite dull while we were walking around the formal gardens, so we stayed in our Bear Bag most of the time, although little Dudley - who hadn't been to Trentham before - wanted to have a closer look at these little cyclamen.

By the time we reached the café and Grizzly had ordered cheese, mushroom and tomato oatcakes and some cake for us all, the sun was coming out, so we all sat outside to have our lunch.

Dudley Bear hadn't tried oatcakes before but he really enjoyed them.  "You wait until you try Mrs Kay's from the Oatcake Boat!" said Hanley.  "They are even better!"

While Polar and Grizzly finished their cups of tea, we climbed onto the yew hedge around the café, to enjoy the sunshine and the views of the lake and gardens.  Then it was time to get back into our bag and have a walk around the lake and through the woods.

When we had reached a path where there weren't too many other people about, Polar put the Bear Bag down so we could get out to run, play and climb.  

Waverley and Dudley found a big springy patch of moss to play on and were having a great deal of fun using it as a trampoline, until they noticed they were being watched by one of the Trentham fairies, who picked Dudley up and gave him a hug!

Endon and Polar were nearby, looking at a lovely grove of Witch-hazel plants with their bright, spidery yellow flowers.  When she heard him calling, Polar carefully lifted Dudley down from the fairy's arms and popped him back into the Bear Bag, before collecting Waverley and Endon.

Hanley, Huddlesford and I were waiting for them near the deer sculptures, keeping an eye on Grizzly who was walking along the path by right beside the lake.  Polar picked us up too and we all walked right around the lake with Grizzly.

"Can we do some more climbing before we go home?" Huddlesford asked Polar.  "There are some great trees not far from the otter sculpture."

Of course the otter sculpture used to be a tree.  Dudley hadn't seen it before, so Polar let him out to do a little climb on his own, but it is very smooth and he couldn't cling onto it properly with his little claws, so she carried us over to another tree with really knobbly bark.

This was an absolutely perfect climbing tree for small bears!  Even though it was getting late in the afternoon and Polar and Grizzly wanted to set off home, missing the school traffic, the cubs climbed quite high up and were having too much fun to climb down.  Then they realised they were very high up and were too scared to climb down!

"Sonning and Huddlesford, please help me collect the cubs, and Hanley and Endon," said Polar.  "They have climbed so high they're out of my reach."

We tried to get up where the smaller bears were, but neither Huddlesford nor I can climb as well as the little bears.  Fortunately, Endon could see that the cubs were in trouble, and he is the best climber of us all, so he helped the cubs down to a branch where Hanley was waiting, and he brought them down to where Polar could reach them.

"Can we have a run about on the grass now?" asked Dudley, but Polar said no.  

"Grizzly is waiting for us by the gate," she said.  "And there are some big swans between here and there, who might not be friendly to small bears."

We always see white 'mute' swans at Trentham but also a family of black swans live there, and both are much bigger than us and can be grumpy.

I had a few quiet moments sitting in the tree enjoying the view while the other bears got themselves organised in the Bear Bag, then it was time for me to squeeze in too, and we all went home for tea. 

 

Paws around the Potteries - Red Bull Locks

 It's usually my little Potteries pal Hanley Bear who writes this column for the blog, but I am doing today's Paws around the Potteries as it's about a short journey Huddlesford and I made with our human guardians one sunny morning last week.

Also, the walk is right on the border with Cheshire and I know that, if Hanley was writing about it, he would start claiming it for Staffordshire instead!

  

We were near the top of the Cheshire Locks flight that runs from Kidsgrove in Staffordshire all the way down to Middlewich in Cheshire, through more than thirty locks, and we started our walk at what used to be the Canal and River Trust offices at the Red Bull Wharf, although we were sad to see they seem to have closed.

 

It was nice for Huddlesford and I to have a quiet walk, enjoying the sunshine and looking at the reflections, and not have to worry about looking after the smaller bears.  They are usually very good, but we still worry about them, especially the smallest bears, when we are near the water.

 

Huddlesford and I were both found next to waterways, so we know how to stay safe there, by not getting too close to the edge of the towpath and not climbing on the gates and balance beams over the water.  Both bear and human cubs also have to be careful on the steep stone steps around locks, which can be slippery in wet or icy weather.

Huddlesford's post, where he was sitting when Polar found him, was near the West Coat Main Line, so he got used to spotting trains.  He was able to hear this diesel loco coming along the line from Kidsgrove to Crewe, where there are usually just passenger trains, and quickly climbed up on a gate for a better look.

We walked with Polar and Grizzly down the hill from Lock 43, which is just above Red Bull Wharf and opposite the Red Bull pub where we had our nice Christmas dinner, to the farms below Lock 46.  On the way back, we decided to do some climbing to get better views of the canal and the scenery.

We were pleased to see there was a boat on the move.  The crew told Grizzly that they had come through the Harecastle Tunnel that morning.  We were quite envious small bears, as it was such a lovely day for boating.

"I hope we can have adventures on Uppie again soon," I said to Huddlesford and he agreed that, for boating bears, those were the very best sort of adventures.

But who knows what our next small bear adventure will be?  We'll just have to wait and see!

Paws around the Potteries - more New Year Walks

 

Ay up, everyone!  It's me, Hanley Bear again, with another one of my posts exploring where we live, in fantastic Staffordshire near the brilliant city of Stoke-on-Trent.

As the weather has been cold but bright, our human guardians have been taking us out for walks to some new places, but also to some old favourites.  Here are a couple of them.

All of us went to Knypersley Reservoir last week, which stores water for the Caldon Canal.  It was very full, because there had been wet weather over the weekend before our visit, so we could see water pouring over the overflow beside the dam.

The reservoir used to be in the grounds of a big stately home and there are still traces of the gardens and a folly, the Warder's Tower, where bats live.

There are also lots of different woodland birds, like great tits and nuthatches, and loads of squirrels, because the country park rangers and some visitors put seed and nuts out for them.

Sometimes we do a long walk right around the top "Serpentine" pool, but on this visit we walked across the middle dam, where there are great views across both lakes.

Polar let us all out of the Bear Bag to do a little bit of climbing, so we jumped about in this beech hedge along the dam, where we were high up out of the way of any doggies being taken for walkies.  The cubs, Waverley and Dudley, thought it was great fun.  Although he is a West Brom supporter, Dudley borrowed one of our Stoke City scarves to keep himself warm, as it was a chilly day.

When we had crossed the dam, we found a tree that was safe for the cubs to climb too and they had loads of fun. 

Finally, we all did some more climbing on the old pumping equipment beside the lake and sat on the top so Polar could take this picture.  I think it might be on our calendar next year!

 

Another day, Polar and Grizzly went for a walk along the Salt Line.  Cheshire East council say it is in their county, but the line used to go to Trentham Gardens in Staffordshire, so I claim it for Stoke!

 

Polar and Grizzly just wanted a quick, brisk walk as it was a very cold day, but Huddlesford and I persuaded them to take us, because there are posts marking out the distances, to scale, between the planets in our Solar System and I love anything to do with space, and Huddlesford loves anything to do with railways.

 

Here's Huddlesford and I, climbing the fence by the golf club where the marker for the sun is fixed, then you can see Grizzly and I at the first post which is very close to it, representing the small, rocky planet Mercury. 

 

Huddlesford and I took it in turns to climb the next three posts which were for Venus, Earth and Mars, which were all less than 200 metres from the sun. 

 

After that, the path goes under the M6 motorway.  I told Huddlesford we ought to think of the cars and lorries on the road above us as the asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

 

It was a lot further to the Jupiter post than it had been from the Sun to Mars.  After we got to the Jupiter post, which it was my turn to climb, we did some tree climbing, because we are small bears and that's what small bears do!

Then I showed Huddlesford the old railway sleeper with the plaque on it that explains where the Salt Line used to run and why it was built.  It's hard to believe that there was a busy salt and chemical industry near here and that it would have been very dirty and smelly, as it is all nice countryside now.

We had even further to walk to find the Saturn post, so we got a lift in the Bear Bag.  Huddlesford was amazed when I told him that the "ice giant" planets, Uranus and Neptune, were still a very long walk away.  Grizzly said we would have to see them another day, as it was time for lunch, so we turned back soon after crossing the lane.  There are moorings on the canal quite close by, so maybe we'll visit by boat one day?

We are lucky bears to have so many good walks to enjoy.  I wonder where we will go next?