A Long Climb to a Long Tunnel!

After a whole day with just one strange, tiny lock, our journey north from Milton Keynes included lots more.  I could see from our map that, to get to the village of Stoke Bruerne, Polar and Grizzly would have to work through seven big locks.

It was a busy day on the Grand Union Canal and, when we reached the bottom lock, there was a queue of boats waiting to go up and just as many boats making their way down.

'Oh dear!' I thought.  'I hope we don't run out of water!'

I had a good view from my place on the roof of all the boats on the move and I couldn't imagine how there could be enough water at the top to keep the locks working.  Polar explained that, when this section of the canal is busy, water gets pumped back up to the reservoir.

'It's still important to share locks and save water,' she said.  'They say these big locks hold enough water to fill a thousand baths!'

At some of the locks, there were volunteer lock-keepers trying to organise the boats.  Even where there weren't lock-keepers, most of the boaters shared sensibly and passed each other carefully in the pounds between the locks.  I tried to give any thoughtless boat crews a Paddington-style hard stare, but I'm not sure that worked.

After slowly working up through the locks, we reached Stoke Bruerne.  The waterfront here is very pretty and busy with visitors to the canal, as there is a wonderful Waterways Museum.  We were lucky to find a mooring here, just big enough for Uppie, and we found some friends too, as the kind people who had travelled with us along the tidal Thames were here. 

While Polar and Grizzly went to have a drink with them at the pub, I decided to look around the museum.  Because I am very small, I couldn't make the lady at the ticket desk see or hear me, so I wasn't able to pay to go in, but I was also too short to read most of the notices which explained what the things in the museum where, so didn't learn as much as I wanted to.  I liked looking at the brightly-coloured painted ware, covered in Roses and Castles art, and decided that, when I got back to the boat, I would ask Polar if she would teach me to paint too. 

That evening, however, I had a more important job to do.  I was going to be the captain of a Pub Quiz team called 'Sonnings Pals', made up of Polar, Grizzly, Bob from Zodiak and another boating friend of his.  I thought that because the pub was beside the canal, there would be lots of questions about boats and canals, and maybe even a few about wildlife and plants, which I had been reading about in Polar's little old Observer's books, which are a perfect size for small bears to read.  

'I'm sure we'll win!' I said to myself.  'I have some very clever friends and I'm a studious little bear.'

Unfortunately, there were no questions about nature or canals - or bears.  Most of the questions were about human things rather than bear things, human history and people from films and television programmes.  As I hadn't even seen a television or been to a film, I was not a lot of help to my team-mates and we did not win. 

As well as doing quizzes, people in pubs often drink something called 'beer'.  I noticed that, after several glasses of this, they seemed to talk more loudly but less clearly, and walk less steadily.  I sniffed the beer in Grizzly's glass and decided it probably wasn't good for small bears, so I didn't drink any.

Polar and Grizzly didn't drink very much beer either, because they wanted to be up early the next day.  Our journey was going to start in a very long tunnel!  I had never been into a canal tunnel before and I was surprised when Polar said I should put my raincoat on.

  

'You get lots of drips from the roof,' she explained.  'And you'll see little calcite stalactites where the drips have been dripping for hundreds of years!'

Polar doesn't really like tunnels, as she finds it difficult to steer the boat in them and worries about bumping her head if the roof is low, but I thought the tunnel was amazing.  Uppie has a big headlight which lit up the tunnel ahead of us very well.  It was like a huge bear cave and, sure enough, there were streaks of different colours down the walls where the water droplets had deposited different minerals and thousands of tiny stalactites on the roof.

Suddenly, I had a very worrying thought.  'What happens if there is a boat coming the other way?' I asked Grizzly.

'The tunnel is just wide enough for two boats to pass,' he explained.  'But we do have to slow down and be careful not to bump into each other!'

I was quite glad there were no boats coming the other way.  Soon, we were back out in the sunshine but my raincoat was very wet and so were my ears and paws.  I was glad it was another sunny, breezy day, as I would soon be dry and fluffy again!

   

A Small Bear in Milton Keynes

Although I am enjoying my adventures in Stoke-on-Trent with my little bear buddy Hanley, I am starting to miss being a boat bear.  There is something very special about looking at the countryside across a canal, listening to the birds and enjoying the sunshine. from the roof of a boat.   

When Uplander II got back to the Grand Union main line from our adventure to Aylesbury, we carried on north towards Milton Keynes.  On the way, I saw how canals have to be dredged to keep them deep enough for boats to use and how the mud can be used to make the banks stronger.

Because there are some big boats on the Grand Union, it probably needs more dredging than smaller canals!

At a place called Fenny Stratford, I saw a very funny lock.  It was only shallow, but it had a swing bridge across it, so we had to open the bridge before we could put the boat into the lock and work through it, then we had to close the bridge again.  I thought this was a very complicated arrangement - bears wouldn't build something so silly! 

Fortunately, we had help to do everything we had to do with this funny lock and bridge, because there was another boat with us, crewed by a very nice lady and her two clever human cubs who were on holiday from the United States.  The little girl seemed as strong as a superhero, as she could open and close the lock gates as easily as Polar and her brother could play the violin beautifully.  If you ever read my blog, Sterling and Ridley, "Hi!" from Sonning the Boat Bear!

Then we were in Milton Keynes.  I thought going through a New Town might be dull but there was lots of green space in between the roads and houses, people walking along the towpath, human cubs to wave to, and it really was a lovely sunny day.  I found a new place to sit, in front of the lifebelt, as I watched the world go by.

At a place called Wolverton, just as we came out from under a railway bridge, there was a fantastic mural of a train with all kinds of things in and around the wagons.  I tried to count them but I'm only a small bear and got confused after the first ten.  

Then things got even more exciting as we went over a huge, long aqueduct, with a big river underneath. 

By now, it was late in the afternoon and Polar and Grizzly were looking for somewhere to moor.  I was very pleased when we stopped right under an apple tree, but I couldn't eat the apples fresh as they were sharp little crab apples.  Instead, I helped to pick some to make jam later.

We had reached a town called Cosgrove.  I think humans do live there, although it seemed to be entirely full of geese that evening, wandering around the fields honking at each other and the boats before flying away over the river.  There were hundreds of them and they were very noisy, but I had enjoyed such a busy day that they didn't keep me awake, and I was soon tucked up in my cosy little bear bunk.

After the Snow

The snow has melted and today the sun came out.  After taking a walk outside and checking the grass, Polar decided that the garden was dry enough we could go out to play.

'Stay away from the vegetable garden, where we've been digging,' she said.  'I don't want you coming back in at lunchtime looking like mud bears!'

We promised to be good and ran out onto the lawn.  All the flowers which had been covered over by the snow were flowering again and looked really pretty in the spring sunshine.  The little snowdrops smelt nice too.

After we had run around on the lawn for a little while, Hanley Bear and I decided it would be fun to do some climbing.  There are several good climbing plants and trees in Polar and Grizzly's garden.  We scrambled up the clematis first, until we noticed there were some very delicate shoots and buds on it.

'If we break these off, we'll be in trouble,' I said to Hanley.  'There won't be as many flowers on it later in the spring, and the bees and other insects won't have as much food as they need.'

'Let's climb something else!' suggested Hanley.  

We found a much more sturdy plant with thick, twisted stems which was brilliant for small bears to climb and didn't have fragile little shoots and buds.  We climbed right to the top and scrambled around on it, looking out over the whole garden and watching the birds on the feeders tucking in to seeds and peanuts, which made us feel hungry.

'I wonder if we could catch fish from that pond, like wild bears do?' I suggested to Hanley but, when we looked into the pond, we didn't see any fish - just a big frog, swimming about deep under the surface.

'There might be fruit or berries in the vegetable garden,' said Hanley.  We looked to see, sitting on top of the water butt, but there was nothing ready to eat and, as Polar had said, it looked like there was lots of dirt and mud.

'Let's see what's growing in the greenhouse,' I said to Hanley.  'There were tomatoes and peppers when we first came home.'

 I thought I could smell beans but, when we climbed up to where the smell was coming from, we found tubes full of compost and the beans in them had started to grow.  There were herbs, which we nibbled a little bit, but they tasted bitter on their own, so we scurried out of the greenhouse and back into the garden.

'I can smell cooking!' cried Hanley Bear, looking up the path towards the house. 

He was right - Grizzly was making Bubble and Squeak out of the left-over vegetables from dinner the night before.  We ran up the path and into the kitchen and, after washing the dirt off of our paws, enjoyed a tasty lunch. 

Afterwards, we did think about going back into the garden, but it suddenly got colder and there was a heavy fall of hail, so we decided to stay in our bear basket and make bear plans, although they can't have been very exciting, as Hanley Bear fell asleep half way through the afternoon!

'It look like you two could do with a nap,' said Polar.  She tucked us into our beds but I have stayed awake, as I am very worried that we might sleep through tea, and that won't do at all!

Lots of Locks!

Hanley Bear and I were hoping for a last game of snowballs today but, when we looked out of the kitchen window, we saw it was raining and making the snow all mushy.  Our human guardians have told us to stay indoors, so I am writing another episode of my Boat Bear travel memoire.

Once Uplander II had reached the summit pound at Tring, to continue our journey we had to go down a lot of locks near a village called Marsworth.  It's always best to share big locks if you can and, this time, we were sharing with a very cheerful group of people on a day boat. 

I stayed safely indoors and watched from my special hammock as we made our way down to Marsworth.  The towpath was busy with people, fishing, walking and picnicking, as there are big reservoirs and very pretty countryside around there.  When we got to the bottom of the flight of locks, the people on the day boat had to work all the way up them again to take their boat back.  

Grizzly explained that we were going on to a town called Aylesbury.  'There's an arm of the canal that goes there, which we would like to explore,' he told me.  'There are sixteen locks on it, but they are only narrow ones, like we have around Stoke, so they are much quicker and easier to work through.'

'The top two are what we call a staircase,' Polar added.  'The bottom gates of the top lock are the top gates of the second.'

This sounded very interesting.  Polar explained we had to make sure the bottom lock was empty, with the paddles closed, as when we emptied the top lock to lower Uppie down, the water would fill the bottom one.  I thought I might be able to help with the locks gates if the locks were small ones, but they were still far too big for a small bear to push and pull, so I sat in the cratch to watch.  The top lock was only just wide enough for Uppie to fit into it and, sure enough, when Polar opened the bottom gates and Uppie moved forward, we found ourselves in another lock.  The small locks emptied very quickly and we were soon on our way, past pretty cottages and flowery gardens, to the next one.  

'How many locks are there to Aylesbury?' I said to myself.  I couldn't remember what Polar and Grizzly had said.  On our map, Aylesbury looked quite close but, when I counted the locks, there were sixteen of them and we had only worked through three.  Some of them started filling themselves up from behind because there was a lot of water coming down from the reservoirs.  It looked as though I would be having quite a late tea!

In fact, the filling-up locks weren't our biggest problem.  What slowed us down were several quite shallow pounds, where we had to be careful not to run aground, and lots of big floating clumps of reeds, which Polar and Grizzly worried would get tangled around Uppie's propeller. 

By the time we reached the outskirts of the town, the sun was setting and my little tummy was rumbling and, as we came into the boat basin, Grizzly had to put the headlight on to see where he was going.  There seemed to be very big buildings all around us.

There were proper pontoons and mooring rings along the towpath, so we moored safely for the night. 

In the morning, Polar and Grizzly went out to explore and found a lovely theatre and university buildings by the canal and an interesting old town up the hill.  They also found there was a big supermarket next to the moorings where they bought fresh food for us all, including grapes and berries for me!

While they were out, I watched a big heron fishing from the pontoons.  I was glad I was safely inside Uppie, as he looked big enough to eat a small bear!

After lunch, we had to go back up to Marsworth, through the reeds and leaky locks and past a boatyard where they were repairing some very, very old wooden narrowboats.  Eventually, we were back at the staircase locks and out onto the Grand Union Main Line again, ready to carry on to the north. 

But first, it was time for tea!