Small Bears at Trentham

Although our Christmas cruise is over and it is winter, we are very lucky bears, as our human guardians like to take us with them when they go for walks and visits to nice places.  One of our favourite places is Trentham Gardens.

 If you want a small bear to join you on a visit to the gardens, there is a bear adoption shop very near the entrance.  Grizzly and Polar let us wave to the other bears but didn't adopt any extra bears.  Polar says we are as many as they can manage!

Because they know they can trust us to be good bears, Polar and Grizzly let us out of our bear bag, once we were in the gardens.

'You can have a run in the gardens, and explore the woods around the lake,' said Grizzly.  'But keep us in sight and don't be afraid to ask to be carried if your paws get tired.'

 

One of my favourite parts of the gardens is just inside the entrance, where there are big drifts of prairie perennials.  In the summer and autumn, there are lots of lovely flowers and, in the winter, tufts of grass which are all soft and springy and great for bouncing on!  After bouncing on lots of grassy tussocks, I climbed up one of the owl sculptures and pretended I was flying.

Endon and Hanley like this area too.  There are lots of small trees with rough bark, which makes them good for climbing and clusters of seed heads where small bears can play hide and seek.

Some of the small shrubs are good for hiding, climbing and bouncing in too.  We all ran around having fun in the winter sunshine, while Polar and Grizzly walked nearby, enjoying the views and taking photos.  There were even a few flowers in bloom, including these snowdrops we found and carpets of pretty little cyclamen under the trees.  

When we reached the far end of the perennial beds, we realised it was a very long way back to the lake and the woods, so we decided to ask our human guardians to put us back in our bear bag.

Polar carried us through the Italian gardens and along the edge of the lake, past the dandelion sculptures and under the big pine trees.

'If we were wild bears, we could climb those trees!' said Endon, but I think they are too tall for even the biggest and bravest wild bears to climb.

Once we got to the edge of the woods, the small bears wanted to get out of the bag and play, but I liked being high up on Polar's shoulder where I could see all the ducks, swans and grebes out on the big lake.  

Hanley Bear found a post to climb, so he could watch the lake birds too, and a hollow tree trunk he could use as a small bear cave.

Endon climbed some more trees, being careful not to go too high, and found a patch of primroses flowering in a woody glade.

'Come on, Sonning!' they called.  'We're having lots of fun - come and join us!'

So Polar helped me out of the bear bag and I joined the others, exploring the woods.   We played in the leaves and sniffed all the new plants put in by the humans who look after the gardens.  I liked sitting on this mossy stump in the sunshine, imagining what the glade in front of me might look like when spring comes again. 

Polar and Grizzly gathered us up and put as back in the bear bag when we got near the café, and carried us all the way back along the other side of the lake, as our back paws were very tired by then and it was starting to get cold.  

She carried us over her right shoulder, to keep us out of the cold wind blowing across the lake.

'Is it going to snow?' asked little Endon.  He had never seen snow but, after hearing about the adventures Hanley and I had last year, was looking forward to it.

'I think it might soon, duck,' said Hanley Bear, sniffing the air.

And he was right!

A Boaty New Year

It has been a very windy day today.  Although we time for a quick run in the garden, it is now too cold for small bears to play outdoors, so I am going to finish telling you about our Christmas cruise.

The morning after our visit to Westport Lake, Polar and Grizzly steered Uppie down the Trent and Mersey Canal to the marina at Etruria, mooring just outside.  They did some shopping, buying rice pudding for us and bringing us back a chocolate bear each.  While they were ashore, we tried to work out some of the clues in Polar's quiz book, but there were no questions about small bears or bear things.

The next day, we had lots of locks to work through.  We went through five in the city of Stoke-on-Trent, then one at Trentham, just on the edge of the city, then four more at Meaford.  Polar found a place to turn the boat not far from the last lock and we moored for the night opposite some houses with lots of pretty lights in their gardens.  

In the morning, we put our hats and coats on and Polar and Grizzly took us for a walk down into the town of Stone.  We loved this small boatyard and the pretty Gypsy caravan above the top lock.

We think a caravan like this would be a brilliant home for a hug of small bears.

There are four locks in Stone.  'Can we take Uppie down through these and go down to Shugborough?' I asked Grizzly, thinking how much my small bear friends would enjoy the journey.

'No!' cried Hanley Bear.  'Grizzly and I have to go to the match tomorrow!'

'And I have to go back to work the day after,' said Polar.  'You will have to show your friends the Trent Valley on another journey, Sonning - perhaps in the spring?'

I was quite sad about that but I know how much Hanley likes his football, so we worked back up the Meaford locks and moored close to the village of Barlaston for the night.  

We thought it would be fairly quiet there, but we bears had forgotten that it was New Years Eve.  We heard fireworks going off all around until very, very late.  In the morning, Polar and Grizzly steered up back to the mooring near the football ground and Hanley Bear went with Grizzly to get oatcakes from Mrs Kay's boat.

He enjoyed his oatcake very much but the same cannot be said for the football match, because Grizzly and Hanley's team lost by two goals to nil, and missed a penalty, which is the same as happened this weekend, although they did play very well last weekend.  Hanley says he will always support them, whatever happens.  He is a very loyal little bear.  Grizzly cheered them up with some Christmas cake when they got back after the game.

We stayed in Stoke for the next few days while Polar was at work, first at Etruria, then back at Westport Lake, before going back through the Harecastle Tunnel and mooring back at our wharf.  We were sad to leave our boat but looking forward to seeing how the garden was growing back at Polar and Grizzly's house, and having more adventures on land with them.  

Lots of things have been done to make the moorings in Stoke-on-Trent nicer than they used to be, and there are little solar lights in the towpaths to make it safer for walkers and cyclists using them in the early morning and evening.  We bears hope lots of boaters will come and visit our home city this year.

More Christmas Boating Adventures

After Christmas, we spent a couple more days pottering along the Macclesfield Canal.  Because it was quite dull and misty, we bears stayed in the cabin, either reading our new books and nibbling Christmas treats, or watching from our hammock in the window as we travelled south again.

We decided that the Macclesfield Canal was very pretty and that we would have to ask Polar and Grizzly to bring us back in the spring, to see it when the trees were in leaf and the flowers in bloom.

One night, we moored opposite a big house called Ramsdell Hall.  When the canal was being built, the owner only gave his permission for it to run through his land on condition that fancy railings be installed along the towpath, so the view from the hall across the countryside wasn't spoiled by an ugly wall or fence.  They are still there and were carefully restored a few years ago.

 On the morning we got back to Kidsgrove, Polar told us we would be going through the Harecastle Tunnel.

'Wrap up warm, bears,' she said.  'I have to make sure the fire is out before we go in.'

'Boo!' we said, because we liked sitting on the settee in the warmth from the little black stove.

'It can't be helped,' she told us, as she raked the ashes through to make sure there was nothing still glowing.  'There is a risk of natural gas pockets in such a long tunnel and we don't want to blow up Uppie, or you bears!'

She wrapped our hammock scarf around us and tucked us up snugly ready for the journey, then turned on all the lights in the boat, to help illuminate the tunnel walls so Grizzly could see where they are slightly wobbly and the roof is low.  

Grizzly almost always steers through the tunnel, because he is much shorter than Polar and less likely to bump his head.  He always puts his life-jacket on in the tunnel, in case of accidents.  Hanley Bear asked if he could help but Grizzly said it was safer if he stayed below with me and Endon.

'You'll get dripped on if you stay out here,' Grizzly told him.  'There are lots of leaks through the roof.  That's why I wear my waterproof in here, even on sunny days.'

I didn't know whether Endon might be scared in the tunnel, so I sat with him, reading to him from our Ladybird canals book, while Hanley helped Polar check our food supplies.

'We've run out of rice pudding!' he warned her.

'Don't worry, Hanley,' she said.  'We'll do some shopping when we get to Etruria.'

'Is that where we're going today?' I asked.

'We'll stop at Westport Lake first, so we can have a walk and get the fire lit again,' she said.  'Then we'll go to Etruria tomorrow, and down to Stone on Sunday.'

'And back to the Stoke City ground for the match on New Year's Day?' asked Hanley excitedly.

'That's the plan.'

'Yay!'  Hanley waved his football scarf in the air.

I was pleased too, because we were stopping at Westport Lake, which is one of my favourite places.  Harecastle Tunnel is one of my least favourite places, because it is long, dark and drippy, but Grizzly is used to steering our boat through it, and soon we were out the other side and on our way to Westport Lake.  There are really nice moorings here - it's one of the places where you can often find the Oatcake Boat too.

While Grizzly moored the boat and Polar got the fire lit again, we bears climbed up the grassy bank to see what wildfowl were on the lake.  We saw great-crested grebes, swans, Canada geese and greylag geese, as well as our favourites, the tufted ducks.

Polar and Grizzly joined us for a walk right around the lake, then we had a big bowl of tasty soup.  That made us so warm and sleepy that we curled up under Polar's scarf and had a long nap.  We didn't wake up until it was almost dinner-time but that's one of the nice things about being a boat bear - sometimes, you don't have to do anything at all!

We still had several days of winter boating fun to come, so I will tell you all about that in my next blog post.   

A Christmas Cruise

Hello everyone and Happy New Year!  Hanley, Endon and I have been busy bears already this year but, before I tell you about our first 2019 adventures, I want to share some Christmas memories with you.

We bears had a wonderful time, because we spent most of the holidays on Polar and Grizzly's narrowboat, Uplander II ('Uppie').  We love being on the boat, because it is small and cosy.  Polar brought some Christmas decorations and we wore our best sock jumpers, so everything looked very festive.

We went aboard on Christmas Eve.  We were glad we had wrapped up warm, because the boat was quite cold at first.  Once Polar had lit the fire, it soon warmed up and the sun came out too, which made everything look much more cheerful.

We watched the scenery from one of the windows, as Polar had made us a hammock from one of her scarves. It was lovely and snug, because we could pull it over our back paws and up to our tummies to keep us warm.  We were very lucky bears and saw two kingfishers on our journey.

After a sunny afternoon cruising quietly up the Macclesfield Canal, Polar and Grizzly moored at Congleton Wharf.  We hadn't been here before and thought it looked very nice and a good place to stop for the night.  

Unfortunately, the local ducks were very noisy, either pecking at the side of the boat to eat the algae off it, or quacking at each other late into the night, then some geese joined them who were even noisier.  We gave them hard stares out of the window, but they took no notice at all!

We had mini mincemeat tarts for Christmas Eve tea, then settled down and tried to sleep in a bed Polar made for us from the hammock scarf and some cushions.  Despite the noise from the ducks and geese, we eventually fell asleep and, when we woke up, it was Christmas Day!

'Presents for everyone!' cried Hanley Bear as soon as it was light, pulling them all out of their bag.  'I wonder what we've got?'

We all worked together to open two thin but quite heavy little parcels we had been sent by our Twitter friend Gecko.

She had sent us two lovely vintage books about things we love learning about - canals and railways - and they are a perfect size and weight for small bears to read.  We have added them to what Gecko calls our 'Libeary' of special small books.

Polar and Grizzly said we were going to have a few hours boating before we had Christmas dinner.  We watched from our hammock as we went under some of the very pretty 'turnover' bridges that the Macclesfield Canal is famous for, across an aqueduct beside the Dane Valley viaduct (no trains on Christmas Day!) and all through the countryside to the locks at Bosley.

Polar and Grizzly had to work the boat up through the bottom lock to turn it round, then bring it back down again, as we were going back towards Kidsgrove in the morning.  There was a very high hill near where we moored called 'The Cloud', which we couldn't see very well because it was hidden by low clouds!  

Polar gave us small bear dinners of turkey and vegetables before she and Grizzly tucked in to theirs, then we enjoyed a quiet evening reading our books and listening to a special concert on the radio about Paddington Bear, which was the perfect end to this small bear's Christmas.  

But we still had more boating adventures to come!