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.