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!

Bobsleigh Bears!

Although our human friends think it is a nuisance, Hanley Bear and I have been hoping for more snow. 

When we were watching the Winter Olympics, we thought the bobsleigh looked particularly exciting and so we started looking for things we could use to build one for ourselves.  We rummaged about in Polar's cupboards, where we found an ice-cream tub and a big yogurt pot.

We cut the yogurt pot to make a streamlined nose for our bobsleigh then stuck it onto the tub, cutting the back out of that so whoever was pushing could jump in easily.  Then we covered it in foil, so it looked sleek.  When Polar came into the kitchen, she found us sitting in our bobsleigh making whooshing noises and pretending we were racing downhill.

'Can we go outdoors to try it out?' I asked her.

'I don't know, bears,' Polar replied.  'It is very, very cold outside today.'

'Please let us!' pleaded Hanley Bear.  'We were very good bears yesterday and made lots of marmalade.'

This was true.  Polar had bought lots of left-over Pancake Day lemons from her local supermarket and we had helped her turn them into delicious marmalade for her workmates.

'Alright then, bears,' she agreed.  'But don't stay outdoors too long and try not to get wet or too cold!'

'Hurray!' we cheered.  We dragged our bobsleigh up the drive, which was covered in a thick carpet of soft, powdery snow, and we were soon zooming down again.

'Let's do that again, and this time we'll go even faster!' said Hanley.

'Don't lean so far forward, Hanley Bear!' I shouted, but I don't think he heard me in time.  Luckily, the snow was very fluffy and we were having so much fun that it didn't seem to matter when we crashed!

We kept playing in the snow even when fresh snow started to fall and the wind got stronger and stronger.  In fact, I think we would have carried on trying to race our bobsleigh until we were frozen bears if Polar hadn't come out to fetch us.

When she picked us up and carried us back into the warm kitchen, we noticed that our teeth were chattering, we had snow frozen onto our fur and our clothes were wet through from the snow too.

'Goodness me, little bears!  We'll have to thaw you out very carefully!' Polar said.  'You're both freezing cold!'

She wrapped us up in towels while she made us some warm drinks, then we were taken back to our bear basket in the living room.  Polar helped us to take off our wet clothes and put our jumpers to dry on the radiator, then we put fresh, warm things on and settled down in our basket to carry on warming up, with a nice little bowl of rice pudding each.

It took a long time until we had thawed out completely, especially our back paws which had got very cold indeed.

'Perhaps humans are right about snow,' said Hanley Bear, snuggling up in his favourite Stoke City jumper.  'It can be fun, but it can be dangerous too.  Perhaps we had better stay indoors tomorrow if it's going to be very, very cold.'

According to the weather forecast, it is going to be very, very cold, so we're going to be sensible bears tomorrow and stay indoors where it's warm!