Not Visiting the Queen

After all the excitement of the boat race, I carried on down the Thames on Uplander II with Polar and Grizzly.  That afternoon, we moored at a town called Marlow. 

My human friends went ashore to do some shopping and look around.  I used this time to explore the boat on my own, finding out where the food was kept, looking at the books and maps, and trying out the bed where Polar and Grizzly sleep.  It was very comfortable indeed, and I almost fell asleep there!

When I heard Polar and Grizzly coming back, I jumped down and ran back to my cushion on the back of the settee.  As it was quite comfortable, if not quite as cosy as the bed, I fell asleep up there. 

When I woke up, it was the next morning and we were on our way down the river again, through more pretty countryside, past lots of big houses and through more very big locks.  I could watch the scenery go by through the window next to my cushion and wave to the water birds and to human cubs on other boats.

I enjoyed looking out for different types of boat too.  Some were very old and beautiful; some were brightly-coloured and silly!  We spent almost all day on the move and, eventually, we moored by a pretty park late in the afternoon, in the last little space, which was just big enough for Uppie!

I saw from the map of the river that the town was called Windsor.  Reading the river guide book, I was very excited to discover that the big castle I could see from the boat was where the Queen lives, who is a very old and very important human lady.

'I don't expect the Queen gets many visits from bears,' I thought.  'I could go to see her!  As long as I get back here before Polar and Grizzly leave tomorrow morning, I won't be in any trouble.' 

When Polar and Grizzly got off the boat to look around, I sneaked out of the side hatch and set off after them.  Although I only have little legs, I can run quite fast and dodge through small spaces where humans can't fit, so I was soon up in the town and outside the big castle. 

'I don't expect I can just walk in to see her,' I said to myself.  I decided it might be best to find out more about visiting the Queen, so I found a shop with books in and started reading one about the Queen and her castles.  I had a terrible shock; the book said that the Queen's guards wore big black hats called 'bearskins'!

'I quite like my skin where it is - on me!' I gasped.  'Maybe visiting the Queen isn't such a good idea after all, in case any of her guards need new hats.'

I ran all the way back to Uppie, as fast as I could and, when Polar and Grizzly got home, I was sitting on my cushion, pretending not to be a real bear and hoping the Queen's guards wouldn't find me. 

When we left Windsor the next day, I was very relieved that we were on our way down river again and that I had escaped, without being turned into a hat.

Bear Food

Writing about oatcakes made me feel hungry, but not as hungry as I was on our journey along the Thames from Marlow.  Because they didn't realise I was a real bear, Polar and Grizzly didn't feed me that day, or the next day, or even the day after that!  I had to be a sneaky bear and eat whatever I could find, while they were asleep. 

Because I wasn't strong enough to open the fridge or the food cupboard doors, I ate things they left out in the galley, like little cherry tomatoes and grapes.  They were quite tasty and a good size for small bears.  After some struggling and wrestling with the lids, I found I could open the biscuit tins, where I found chocolate biscuits with caramel in (scrummy!) and nice little bear-sized, crumbly crackers with rosemary, although these were very salty and made me thirsty.

Once Polar and Grizzly realised I needed feeding, they tried hard to find out what food I liked.  Just so you know, not all small bears like marmalade sandwiches.  They will do, in an emergency, but scones and jam are nicer.  Porridge is excellent too, with plenty of honey on it.  Bears like sweet things, because we use up a lot of energy doing bear things, but we always clean our teeth after eating them, as you human cubs should too.

I discovered that my favourite food was rice pudding with jam.  Polar used to put a teaspoon of jam in my rice pudding and then, when her back was turned, I would sneak another spoonful in!  This was lovely until we ran out of jam and they made me eat marmalade sandwiches again.

Luckily, by that time it was late summer and we were on a canal.  In one area, there were trees all along the towpath with what looked like small plums growing on them.  I ate one, but it was very sharp and made my mouth all dry and tingly.

'These are damsons, Sonning,' said Polar.  'We can turn them into jam!'

When she told me that, I scuttled out of the boat and picked hundreds of them!  Polar put them in her biggest pan, with some water, and simmered them until they went soft, then she added sugar and boiled them.  It looked like there was boiling red gloop in the pan, so I kept well away from it.  Lots of big pips floated out - Polar said they were called 'stones', but they were more like wood. 

When she turned the gas off, the gloop had turned into lovely, shiny, dark-red jam.  It was slightly soft but it was perfect for putting on rice pudding, so I could have my favourite food again!

I will tell you what else we made into jam when we get to that part of my journey, but next time I am going to tell you about the town with the big castle where the Queen lives.

PS.  I like fruit cake too!

Oatcakes!

Now you know more about the birds I met on my journey, I'm going to tell you another story about me which has birds in it.  It also has oatcakes!  One of the best things about Stoke-on-Trent, according to my friend Hanley, is the food.  He is always talking about North Staffordshire oatcakes.  I had never heard of oatcakes until I came to Stoke-on-Trent.

One morning, Hanley seemed even more excitable than usual.  'Kay's boat is at Westport Lake,' he told me.  'And I've asked Grizzly and Polar to take us there so you can have an oatcake!'

We put on our jumpers, which Polar made for us out of her old socks, got into our special bear bag and Polar carried us outside.  I thought we would be travelling there on Uppie the narrowboat but Grizzly drove us in their little red car.  When we arrived at the lake, Polar let us out of the bear bag. 

'Be good bears and don't get lost!' she said.

Hanley wanted to go straight to the Oatcake Boat but I hadn't seen the lake before and I wanted to explore.  There was a big pond nearby, which I thought was the lake at first.  All around it, and on it, were ducks and geese.  They looked much bigger from the ground than they had done from our boat!    I found a park bench and climbed up onto it, so I could look the bigger birds straight in the eye and talk to them about their home.  The geese didn't seem to like me very much and kept hissing at me, which wasn't very nice of them, so I told them not to be so naughty!

'They think you're a small dog,' said a very big swan.  'We have trouble with dogs.  Sometimes they chase us and bite is, because the humans who look after them don't keep them on leads when they're walking around the lake.  Some of my bird friends have been badly hurt or even killed.'

'I'm very sorry to hear that, Mr Swan,' I said, because I was.

He scowled at me.  'You're not a dog, are you?'

'No, Mr Swan.  I'm a bear.'

'A bear!'  He came very close and sniffed at me.  I thought he was going to peck me with his big orange beak.  'You're very small, for a bear, but you seem like a kind animal to me.'

'My friend is even smaller,' I said.  In all the excitement of meeting the swan, I realised I had lost Hanley Bear!  'You haven't seen him, have you?'

'I'll ask the other swans to look for him,' said my swan friend.  'He might be by the lake.'

'Isn't this the lake?'

'This is just our pond, little bear.  The lake is over there!'

I jumped down from my seat and we walked up a little hill.  On the other side of it was a huge expanse of clear, blue water, twinkling in the sunshine.  A path went all the way around it.  It was the prettiest place I had seen since arriving in Stoke-on-Trent.

'There he is!'  I could just see a tiny figure on the bank of the lake, a long way from us, waving his special flag.

The swan said something - in swan - to one of his friends, and the other bird started paddling across the water.  Swans go very fast when they have to and he reached Hanley in no time at all.

'I've asked my friend to bring him back to us,' explained the swan.  'He's so small, he can ride on my friend's back, even if he decides to fly!'

'Hang on, Hanley!' I shouted.

However, when Hanley saw the huge swan coming towards him, he turned around and ran away in fright.  Luckily for him, Polar and Grizzly were walking around the lake and had just got to where he was.  Polar picked him up and put him in the bear bag.  Then they came to look for me.

'You bears ought to stay together when you're out and about,' Polar said.  'Sit here in the sunshine, while I take some photographs of the lake, then we'll all go for oatcakes!'

We sat on a sunny bench with Grizzly and waited for her to come back, then we went up to the canal together.  There were lots of boat shops there, selling clothes and cards and wooden things, and Polar bought some very pretty cards with kingfishers on from a clever lady called Lesley.  There was even a boat of pirate things.  Hanley and I thought it might be fun to be pirate bears, but Polar said she didn't want to encourage us to be bad bears and refused to buy us pirate hats and cutlasses, so we will just have to make our own one day! 

Then we saw the Oatcake Boat.  Mrs Kay and Mr Steve were very busy, with a long queue of people waiting for oatcakes and something called lobby, which Hanley says is the best sort of soup in the whole world.  After our adventures with the swans, Hanley and I were very hungry, so we were very relieved to find there were still oatcakes for sale when Grizzly reached the front of the queue.

'Here you are, Sonning!' said Grizzly.

My oatcake, which I shared with Grizzly, was really scrumptious and I was sad when we finished it.
 
Hanley shared Polar's oatcake.  He said he had so much energy afterwards that he thought he could open and shut lock gates, so he tried to get a job helping Mr Rob the Locks.  Mr Rob thanked him for offering but said he didn't really need a small bear's help, as his son assisted him if there were lots and lots of locks.

'You have a job already, Hanley,' I said.  'You're a cultural ambassador for Stoke-on-Trent!'

Hanley waved his flag proudly.

'That's the best job in the whole world, duck!' he said.

Feathery Friends

Here's one of Polar's stories about me.  It shows you how much you can learn by reading and looking at pictures.  

Sitting on the cushion in the cabin, Sonning could see that the papers on the settee which Polar had tidied into a heap had pictures of birds on them.  He leaned forward, hoping for a better view of them.  Although he could see the pictures quite well, the writing on them was too small for him to read.

Just then, Grizzly came back into the cabin.  ‘You look like you’re about to fall off of that cushion, little chap!’ he said.  ‘Let’s sit you down on the settee!’

Grizzly carefully lifted Sonning down from his cushion and sat him next to the bird charts.

‘Thank you!’ said Sonning.

Grizzly didn’t seem to hear him, as he opened the small doors in the side of the boat, left the cabin and went through to the back without saying anything more.

Sonning turned to look at the charts.  The top page was titled Ducks and Geese.  Sonning saw pictures of some of the birds that he had seen from his tree and from the boat.  Now he was close to the charts, he could read their names.  The brown ducks with green heads were called mallards.  The green-headed ones were the boy ducks and the brown ones with a little blue stripe across each wing were the girls.  

The big white bird with the whistling wings that had flown near his tree was a mute swan. 

‘What an odd name for a bird that makes so much noise when it flies!’ said Sonning.

Sonning saw that the proper name for the boat people’s favourite birds with fancy plumage was great-crested grebe and the noisy geese with chocolate brown heads were Canada geese.

He couldn’t see some of the other birds that he had seen out on the river on the Ducks and Geese chart, so he turned to another sheet.  On this were pictures of small birds, including some that had perched in his tree.  He recognised the robin with its red breast, a neat little brown bird called a dunnock, the tiny wren and the reed bunting.  One of those had sat right on the top branch singing in the evening.  

‘I wonder what the big grey fishing bird with the long beak is?’ said Sonning, turning to another page.  He had seen this bird slowly flapping its huge wings as it looked for a good spot to catch fish.  Sonning thought it was rather scary, especially the way it stabbed at them with its big beak.  He didn’t find the big grey bird on the next chart, which was titled Birds of Prey, but he did see a picture of the fierce, fork-tailed bird he once thought might eat him for dinner. 

‘So, it’s a red kite!’ he said.  ‘I hope I don’t see any more of those!’

Sonning found the grey bird on a sheet covered in pictures of long-legged wading birds and others that liked to live near fresh water.  It was a heron.  The jewel-bright kingfisher was there too.  Sonning had heard Grizzly saying that he hoped to see one of those.  Sonning though he should like to see one too.  He looked out on the river through the pair of little doors on the side of the boat which Grizzly had opened.  He saw more mallards and another grebe.

‘Hello grebe!’ he shouted.  The grebe turned towards the boat for a moment, looking rather startled.  Suddenly, it dived under the surface and was gone from view.

‘I wonder why the big black fishing bird isn’t here?’ Sonning said.  He had seen one of these sleek creatures swimming right in the middle of the river and diving to catch fish.  He was very surprised to see it was on the sea birds sheet.  So was a dainty white bird that he had watched dancing on the wind over the river before diving in to snatch slippery silver fish.  The big black bird was a cormorant and the pretty white bird with the black stripe through its eye and red flash on its head was an arctic tern.

Sonning was busy learning the names of all these birds when the Polar came into the cabin.  He didn’t know if he might have done wrong, disturbing the pile of bird charts, so he sat very still with his paws by his side.

‘The wind has blown those charts about again,’ she said, closing the doors in the side of the boat again.  ‘And Sonning looks a bit bored sitting there.  I’m not sure if he’s finished drying out, either.’

She squeezed his tummy.

‘Ouch!’ said Sonning, but she didn’t seem to hear him.  Sonning concluded that humans didn’t have very good ears, or at least that they weren’t as good as animal ears.

‘He is still slightly damp,’ Polar said.  ‘He can come out into the cratch with me.  He’ll be safe there while I do the ropes as the next lock is only a small one.’

‘I’d rather stay here, thank you!’ said Sonning, a little more loudly than before, but Polar’s silly human ears still didn’t hear him and he was carried out into a little triangular room right by Uplander’s nose, where Polar sat him down on a soft seat.  Sonning saw that the little room had sides which looked like they were made from cloth of some sort.  Polar did something to the cloth on the right-and side which allowed her to roll it up, opening that side of the room to the fresh air and enabling Sonning to see over the side of the boat as well as forwards.  Polar sat down beside him.  It was lovely and warm there, in the summer sunshine and gentle breeze, but the little bear was nervous.  Although Sonning thought he should be safe next to Polar, he would have preferred to stay on the settee with the picture charts and learn the names of the birds, especially if there was another lock monster nearby.

PS.  I will explain what lock monsters are very soon!

From Henley to Hanley

In between writing my memoires and teaching Hanley how to be a Boat Bear, I've been learning more about my new home with the help of my human friends and my little bear buddy.

Hanley thought the best place to start teaching me about his home city was the town we named him after, so he asked Polar to put us in the Bear Bag and take us into the City Centre, where we started our exploration at the Potteries Art Gallery and Museum.

Here we are on the statues outside.  The man with the books and the moustache is a famous Potteries writer called Arnold Bennett.  He was very good with words and at making up memorable characters but I don't think he was as good at mathematics.  His most famous book is called Anna of the Five Towns but, as everybody here knows, there are six! 

Inside the museum are some of the cleverest and most beautiful things ever made by humans.  There are amazing gold items made more than a thousand years ago, which were found in a field by a clever and very honest man with a metal detector.  There is an aeroplane which helped to stop a very bad man called Hitler conquering all of Europe.  There are hundreds and hundreds of amazing pottery things too, from tiles, cups and saucers to huge vases and statues of birds, animals and people.  Humans in Stoke-on-Trent have been turning clay into clever things for hundreds of years, and they still do, as we saw at an exhibition in an old church called the Bethesda Chapel.

I thought Hanley said it was called the Bear-Thesda chapel.  I expected to find a bear called Thesda living there but there were no other bears.  Instead, there were some very nice and knowledgeable people who could tell us about the building and the art on show, and some other nice people who sang to us.
   
Hanley showed me the Town Hall too, and the office where Polar works when she isn't on Uppie or taking us out and about.

Hanley showed me that his town has lots of places to go to see live music, drama and dance, with the Regent Theatre, Victoria Hall and Mitchell Memorial Theatre. 

'That's why we're a City of Culture,' Hanley said.  'We're going to be the City of Culture soon!'

 

I think it might be very nice to see a play one day, even if it wasn't about bears.   

Hanley is very proud of his home town.  It isn't all as nice as the parts you can see in our photographs but it is home to my best bear buddy and lots of kind, friendly people who can make clever things like pots, art and oatcakes, so I am helping Hanley campaign for Stoke-on-Trent to be City of Culture in 2021. 

We'll be out and about in the other towns soon, so look out for us!

At the Regatta

I've been busy showing you my boat bear outfits and introducing you to my little friend but now it's time for me to tell you more about my journey.  When Uplander II left Sonning (the village - not me!) we cruised down the Thames towards London.  I didn't know that was where we were going.  All I knew was that we were heading downstream, with the current.  This, in Polar's words, is what happened when we got to Henley-on-Thames... 

Henley-on-Thames - not to be mistaken for Hanley!

   The little beige bear found that his new seat, in a snug corner of a room with roll-up walls right at the front of the boat, was the best place to watch the river go by.  He wasn’t very much higher up than the surface of the water itself.
  ‘We seem to be going very fast now!’ Sonning said to Polar, but she was busy making a black box with a tube at the front go click! at things, so she didn’t hear him.  

   There were plenty of other boats of all shapes and sizes floating about on this stretch of the river.  Some were about the same length as Uplander II but a different shape; pointier at the front, wider and taller, with many more people on board.  They looked as if they were made of polished wood with very shiny metal trimmings and their engines made nice, steady dub, dub, dub, dub noises.  Polar Clicked her black box at these boats.  There were also a lot of big white boats, which Sonning didn’t think looked or sounded anything like as nice.  Polar seemed to think differently about them too, as she didn’t click her box at them.
   ‘Don’t you look cute, Sonning?’ she said, suddenly.  ‘It looks as if you’re watching the boats!’
   Before Sonning could move, she pointed the black box’s tube at him and pressed something on top of it.  Click!  Sonning expected to feel something unpleasant happen to him.  He screwed up his little black eyes and clenched his paws, but nothing felt any different after the click than it did before.  Polar looked at the back of the box and smiled.

  ‘You really are a sweet little bear!’ she said.
  Sonning wondered why she was calling the black box a sweet little bear.  ‘Perhaps humans have very limited eyesight as well as poor hearing, by animal standards,’ he thought.  ‘Although, if she thinks it’s a bear, why does she keep pointing it at things and making it click?  And, if she can’t see very well, how can she see to steer the boat and handle the ropes at locks?’
   He had just started worrying that one day a short-sighted Polar might confuse him with a rope, or something else, and accidently throw him overboard, when their boat went under another bridge. 
   ‘Keep left from here, love!’ Polar shouted back to Grizzly.
   ‘I know, sweetheart!’ he shouted back.
   Sonning saw that the river in front of them was divided in two down the middle by a row of big orange floating things held together with rope or cable.  Uplander II was travelling with the stream on the left-hand side of the river, which was unusual because they generally stayed on the right-hand side.  On the other side of the barrier were some of the very shiny boats, tied to the land with ropes.
   ‘Ooh!  There’s Gloriana!’ gasped Polar.  She came to sit beside him, picked up her black box and made it click at something.

   Next to them was a very beautiful red and gold boat.  That must belong to someone very special,’ thought the little bear. 
   Sonning studied the scene before him.  Everyone seemed to be wearing funny, impractical clothes that didn’t look at all suitable for doing river things like jumping on and off boats, catching ropes or hammering in little metal posts.  The men had very light-coloured trousers, crisp white shirts and smart jackets, some with brightly-coloured stripes. 
   ‘Those clothes will show the dirt far too easily when they have to do their boat jobs,’ said Sonning.  Although it would be nice to have some trousers, the little bear thought he would choose tougher, darker fabric, so it wouldn’t wear out or look grubby if he had work to do.
   Many of the men on shore wore light-coloured hats too, which appeared to be made from straw.  Sonning laughed when he saw them.  ‘How silly!’ said the little bear.  ‘Those definitely won’t stay on if it gets windy and, if it rains, they’ll get all soggy and mushy, then fall to pieces!’

 It would be nice to have a hat to keep the sun and the rain off his furry head, but Sonning didn’t want a fragile straw one.  He liked Grizzly’s sturdy flat cap, although he wasn’t sure how he would fit a hat like that around his bear ears.
  The women on the shiny boats were wearing flowery, floaty dresses and either wore wide-brimmed hats or had feathery things in their hair.  They also had the oddest shoes on their feet, with pointy toes and long, thin tapering heels.  They didn’t look anything like Polar’s big boots.  Sonning wondered if they had been designed for pushing into the ground to secure mooring ropes if you didn't have a metal stick.  None of the shiny boats seemed to be held in place by them, so he guessed this theory must be wrong.
   ‘What funny people!’ he laughed.
   Out of the corner of his left eye, Sonning saw something on the other side of the floating barrier, coming towards them very, very quickly, despite having the current against it.  He heard Polar’s black box going click! click! click! and a thin boat full of men wearing vests and shorts, all facing backwards and splashing long sticks in the water, shot past, followed very closely by another.  On shore, the smartly-dressed people started shouting and waving.   Sonning waved back, until he realised they were waving at the men facing backwards. 

   Then another boat with an engine, full of men in striped jackets and straw hats went past, chasing the thin boats.  Uppie rocked about in its wake.
   'Maybe they’re trying to get their attention, so they turn to face the right way and don’t crash their skinny boats,’ Sonning thought.  ‘Or perhaps they’ve found the rest of those men’s clothes.  They must be very cold dressed like that!’
   Further along, they passed more thin boats full of backwards-facing people, hurtling upstream, still on the other side of the barrier.

   'Look where you’re going, you silly people in underwear!’ the little bear shouted, leaning as far out from Uppie as he dared.  ‘Turn around, please!  Look out for the bridge and the other boats!’
   But, as they all had normal human ears, nobody heard him.
   ‘Oh no!  There’s going to be a terrible crash now!’ sighed Sonning.  He kept leaning over the side of the boat, trying to think of some way he could save the backwards-facing boaters.
   Suddenly, Sonning felt Polar lifting him up.
   ‘Watch you don’t fall out when the judges’ boat goes past!’ she said, sitting him safely back in his corner.  ‘I know the rowing races are very exciting but we don’t want a bear overboard to rescue while we’re dodging the traffic.  You stay right there, while I get us some lunch.’
   Now he looked properly at them, Sonning could see that the backwards-facing men weren’t hitting the water with their long sticks - they were using the flattened ends of the sticks to push water behind them and to propel their boats along the river as fast as they could.  It looked very hard work; even though they were only wearing underwear, the men in the boats looked hot and sweaty.
   ‘I wonder why they’re doing that, when they could put an engine on their boats and go even faster?’ said Sonning.  ‘I feel exhausted just watching them!’
   Then Sonning remembered that Polar had said something about lunch.  He knew that lunch was a human word for food in the middle of the day.  He liked the idea of lunch.  He was suddenly feeling quite hungry.