Hanley Bear Goes to London!

 Ay up, everyone!  Sonning has asked me to do a guest post for his blog about a great adventure I had in the middle of May, when I went to London with Polar and Grizzly.

I put my best boating bear clothes on, including my boaters belt, but decided to wear my Stoke City badge too.

We caught the train down from our local station at Kidsgrove.  Polar and Grizzly said they would have liked to bring all of the Bears but they didn't think they would be able to get more than one Bear through "security", because they were going to a very special occasion.

Polar had booked us into a hotel not far from Little Venice and Paddington Basin, where we were last year on our big boat trip.  From our room, I could see all the way to the BT Tower, which I knew was not far from Euston, where the trains to Stoke are.  This made me feel a little bit homesick, as I love Stoke.

I cheered up when Polar and Grizzly took me out for a meal in Paddington Basin, along with Grizzly's son, Mr George, who comes up to go to football with us sometimes.  We had beer and pizza and caramel ice cream desserts in a nice restaurant right by the canal, but did not stay out late because we had a busy day coming up.

The next day we went to the station named after a very famous Bear, and caught some underground trains across to St Paul's Cathedral.  The trains were busy, but people were very kind to Grizzly and offered their seats to him, just as they did on the bus the day before.

When we were near the cathedral, Polar pinned Grizzly's MBE medal on him, which he got for all his hard work campaigning for better train services for our area.  Polar explained to me that we were in London for a special church service for people with honours like Grizzly's and because Grizzly's invitation had come from the Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire, they had decided to bring a Staffordshire Bear with them - but Polar wasn't sure I would be allowed through security!

So I hid in the Bear Bag under Polar's walking shoes (she put some smart ones on to go into the cathedral) and, when I crept out again, we were inside!  Then I spotted some Yeomen of the Guard, so I hid again in case they were searching for Small Bears without tickets.

Polar wasn't allowed to take pictures during the service, so there aren't any of the speakers, or the choir, or of Mr King Charles and Mrs Queen Camilla, who had seats quite close to us as we were seated under the big dome in the middle.

It was a nice service, with lots of singing by a choir of human cubs, some singing by all the hooms (well, not Polar, because she can't sing and it is very bad if she tries) and some music from the RAF band, who are really good.  I waved at Mrs Sarah Mullally, the Bishop of London, when she was doing a nice speech, as I remembered her blessing the boats at Cavalcade last year, but I don't think she saw me as she didn't wave back.

Polar took some pictures afterwards, and a lady sat in front of us took one of the three of us.  She had travelled up from Cornwall and lives there now, but I was over the moon when I heard she was originally from Fenton in Stoke-on-Trent!

After the service, we only had time for a little bit of a look around the cathedral, and as it was nearly lunchtime, Polar suggested to Grizzly that we have a meal at the Tate Modern Art Gallery, which has a very smart restaurant on the top floor and is across the Thames from the cathedral.

On the way to the gallery, we passed a brilliant memorial to the firefighters who saved St Paul's and lots of other buildings from burning down during the Blitz.  I like statues to ordinary humans doing good or brave things and I hope the firemen got honours and special church services too!

I wasn't very brave when we went over the Millenium Bridge, and tucked myself securely into the Bear Bag (with Polar's smart shoes) as it didn't have rails close enough together to stop a small bear falling in the river!  But I did peep out for a look at the funny-shaped buildings in the City of London.  Polar told me that light reflected from the wedge-shaped one slightly to the right of the centre of the photo once melted parts of an expensive car, which made me laugh!

I enjoyed being up in the restaurant, watching all the boats going up and down on the River Thames, and I had some nibbles of Polar and Grizzly's dinners and most of Polar's lemony dessert.

 

Being a Stokie Bear, I had to turn one of the plates over to check that their crockery was made by the best potters in the world, so you can imagine how cross I was when I saw that it wasn't from Stoke-on-Trent at all!  I was going to give the staff my very hardest stares, but then Ciara, who had been looking after us, brought Grizzly a platter of fruit and sweets decorated for him specially, so I let them off this time.

After we had finished our posh lunch, Polar suggested that we use one of the fast ferry boats to go back towards our hotel, and Grizzly and I thought that was a bear-illiant idea.

We went speeding down the Thames, passing lots of famous sights, like the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament, until we got off at Vauxhall to get underground trains back to Paddington.

I made some new friends on the boat, who were Japanese schoolchildren.  They took lots of pictures of me and stroked my fur and were very kind to me.  I wonder if they thought I was a sort of Stokie Pokemon?

 

By the time we got back to our hotel to collect our bags, I was quite a tired Small Bear, and fell alseep on the train home to Staffordshire.  But I had enjoyed a great adventure and was very proud of my human guardian Grizzly, and glad that he had moved to my home county of Staffordshire and adopted me as his little Bear buddy.