A Big Boating Adventure - Part Five

 In my last post about last year's boat journey, I wrote about the marvellous time we Bears had at the Cavalcade Festival at Little Venice, which was over a year ago!  Now I am going to tell you about the adventure we had after the festival, when Polar and Grizzly took our boat, Uplander II, or "Uppie", along the Regents Canal through London and out to the Lee Navigation.  

None of us had been that way before.  We went through a short tunnel at Maida Vale and passed some very fancy houses and through the middle of London Zoo before coming to three big locks at Camden.  There was an awkward breeze across these and Polar found it very difficult to get the bottom gates closed ready to fill the lock for our boat, so she drafted in passers-by to help!

 

We carried on through to St Pancras, where there was another tricky lock, but that was all we had to do that day, as Polar had booked us a mooring at the London Canal Museum that night.  We Bears wanted to go in to explore, especially as we could see some small bears inside, but we were too late as it was closed for the day.

 

In the morning we set off again, heading east into the Islington Tunnel, which is not quite wide enough for two boats to pass, so you have to make sure there is no other boat coming your way when you go in!  As we came out, another boat pulled away a little in front of us, which had been moored on the eco-moorings, where there are planters full of wildflowers and small trees. 

The only crew member was a young woman and she, Grizzly and Polar worked through the next lock together.  She was very nimble and would probably have managed the locks more quickly on her own than with our "help", but she did not mind us joining her.  Her name was Milly and she gave Polar some helpful tips about boating on the Lee, including that the locks were bigger than on the canals and often rather hard work, plus some hints about where we might manage to moor.  She was heading the same way, so we worked the three locks on the Hertford Union Canal together as well.

 

The last lock let us out onto the wide and busy Lee Navigation, which leads down to the Thames at Limehouse, passing the site of the 2012 Olympic Games.  But we turned upstream, towards Tottenham.  All was going well until we reached the first lock and found that someone had moored a big widebeam boat on the lock moorings, but luckily there was a man on a fuel boat approaching as well, who was less nervous than Polar about jumping off the roof of his boat to get ashore, and helped us through with him.  We Bears decided that we liked London boating people, as they were kind and co-operative!

After another big lock we moored where Milly had suggested, at Tottenham Marshes, and our humans had a very good night's sleep after such a busy day.  Carrying on up the Navigation, we passed through more locks, including one at Enfield.  They were all different - some were fully manual, some had electrically operated gates and some had a mixture of the two! 

The land around us was quite open and flat at first, with lots of electricity pylons, but gradually became more like proper countryside.  After working through another lock, we reached the junction with the River Stort and found a place to stop for the night, near a boat whose owner was growing pretty tulips on the roof to sell in local markets.

 

Polar and Grizzly made us a big bowl of porridge before we set off the next morning.  Our journey up the Stort was a proper river cruise, winding through the pretty countryside towards Royston and on to Sawbridgeworth.  

It looked like there were super moorings here, in front of some new flats, as there were neat mooring bollards all along the riverside.  But there were also big signs that said "No Mooring"!  How very annoying!  Instead of using the nice bollards, our poor humans had to make the best job they could mooring against a grassy bank on the other side, so we could go ashore for dinner and some beer

We found there were some overgrown moorings a little further up the river in the morning, but they wouldn't have been much better than where we stopped.

We completed our journey along the Stort on the same day that King Charles was being crowned so, while other people were having street parties and watching the TV, we were right out in the country cruising along a beautiful, tranquil river.  We wondered if the King wished he was having a nice, quiet day like us.

We were pleased to find some good moorings at Bishops Stortford with space for Uppie, so Polar and Grizzly took us exploring. We liked the park and the mound where the castle used to be, but our favourite place was a big shop called "Cooper's of Stortford" which sold just about everything - except the one thing we were looking for, which was some new braces for Grizzly's trousers.  And we met a friend of Polar's for lunch the following day, which rounded off a very nice time there.

 

And we even found some braces for Grizzly in a charity shop!

I will tell you about some of the adventures we had coming home another day.

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A Busy Weekend in Endon Village

I have been neglecting my blog, as I have been a very busy small bear recently, having all sorts of adventures with my fellow bears and human guardians.  Once again, I'm going to write about our most recent adventure before I try to catch up with some of the others.

We have been helping our human guardians with their craft stall at the Endon Well Dressing this weekend, where Polar sells some of the things she paints Roses and Castles style.  Well Dressing is a Peak District tradition, which involves decorating village wells and springs with fabulous pictures made from flower petals pressed onto slabs of damp clay.  Endon, a village between Stoke-on-Trent and Leek, celebrates their Well Dressing with a three day fair and festival.

Today was also Endon Bear's sixth "birthday" - or rather, the anniversary of Hanley Bear and I helping Polar to win him from the spin-the-wheel game at the fair here six years ago. 

Endon and I came over on Saturday to help with the stall, and helped Polar and Grizzly to sell lots of pretty things, including all of our teapots.  Polar painted them more than 20 years ago, but stored them up in the loft and forgot about them!  

 

We also saw the fabulous Well Dressing itself. 

  "It's got the RNLI's 200th Anniversary on it," said Endon.  "We'll have to bring Finley Bear from Minehead to see it!" 

I thought that was an excellent idea, and was sure Polar wouldn't mind bringing an extra bear or two when we came again on Monday.

There was no craft tent on Sunday, so we helped our humans in our garden instead, in between heavy showers.  The festival field at Endon had been very soft, so Polar was worried that all the rain would make it too soggy to hold the craft fair on Monday.  But the organisers made sure there was lots of straw on the ground inside and outside the tent and helped us to bring our bags of painted ware onto the site, and Polar put her wellies on.

 

Polar and Grizzly set their stall up again, with Polar doing some painting at the table alongside the one with the things for sale on, which we helped Grizzly to look after again.  We even looked after the stall on our own while Grizzly went to buy oatcakes for us all.  

 

Then Polar had a break from painting and carried us down to the Well Dressing in our Bear Bag.  Finlay Bear was thrilled to see the RNLI decorations and said how clever it was to make all this from flower petals.

"We are miles from the sea here," said Hanley Bear, after explaining to Finlay that Staffordshire Well Dressings were the best in the whole world, even though Derbyshire is better-known for them.  "I wonder why they made a picture about the lifeboats?"

"Don't forget that lots of the people we rescue are from inland, not from seaside towns," Finlay reminded him.  "Seaside folk grow up learning to respect the sea and take care around it, even on sunny days, but people who come to the beach on holiday don't understand rip-tides and off-shore winds, and that's how they get into trouble.  Maybe we rescued someone from this village?"

 

We didn't know if that had happened or not, but what Finlay says about the people who are rescued is quite true - lots of them do come from inland towns and counties.  Polar took our picture sitting in front of the Well Dressing, then she helped us back into our bag and carried us up the muddy hill and back towards the craft tent.

Just outside, Hanley Bear spotted something curious - it looked like a picture frame full of bees!  He went over for a closer look and a member of the local beekeepers' group explained it was a display hive, so he could show people how bees make their honeycomb.  Even better, they had a stall selling fresh local honey inside.  Because we had all been good bears, Grizzly bought us a pot!

We carried on helping on the stall and by the end of the afternoon, had sold lots more of Polar's painted things and the stall was looking a little bit bare, even though she was painting new things to fill in the gaps.  The weather stayed dry, except for one shower when Grizzly nipped out to get a surprise for us.

There was a big shower just before we got home, but it was followed by a marvellous rainbow.  Then Grizzly showed us our surprise - some cakes from the Endon Scouts' cake stall, specially for Endon Bear's birthday!

   

Aren't we lucky Bears!

A Big Boating Adventure - Part Four

 I have so many things to catch up with in my blog that I have been worrying about where to start, but my human guardian Polar has helped, by treating us Bears to a new book for our Libeary.

It's called Paddington at the Carnival and is about Paddington Bear going to the Cavalcade Festival at Little Venice.  The pictures include all sorts of little details that Hanley Bear and I recognised from our visit in the spring, such as the little blue bridges and the island with willow trees in the middle of The Pool.

We were there in April and May, arriving several days before Cavalcade.  Our human guardian Polar and I took the train home for a couple of days, to collect post and check on the garden and allotment, and she did some things for work too, while Grizzly and the other bears did jobs on Uppie the narrowboat.  When Polar and I got back, we all had a great day out at the Tower of London, which I will blog about another day, as this post is all about Cavalcade.

The Cavalcade Festival has been running since well before I became a Boating Bear - in fact, this was the 40th anniversary of the first Cavalcade.  Polar and Grizzly had been once before, ten years ago, but our friends Mrs Chrissie and Mr Alan had been lots of times, because Mrs Chrissie did lots of publicity and organising for the event, which was easier when they lived in London but now they live in Worcestershire, which makes things trickier!

Cavalcade takes place over the May Day Bank Holiday weekend and there are things happening every day. There are stalls selling food and drink, hats and clothes, all sorts of crafts and souvenirs, draws, tombolas and raffles, and information stands for many good causes.  Best of all, The Pool at Little Venice fills with dozens of narrow boats, decked out in flags and bunting, which is an absolutely marvellous sight. 

I was a very busy small bear, as I was reporting on the event for our Inland Waterways Branch Facebook page and for Bear Twitter.  It was so busy that I had to ask Polar to carry me around in the Bear Bag, as I was worried about being stepped on or accidentally kicked into the water, and I had a much better view from there too.

 

We had lots of visitors from Polar and Grizzly's friends and families over the weekend, including several of human cubs who really enjoyed their days looking at all the boats and picnicking beside the canal.  We bears made sure there was always plenty of cake on board for our visitors, and for snacks between hugs for us. 

And I spotted a very famous bear visiting another boat, but didn't manage to catch him for an interview.  

On Sunday, all of us Bears put our best boating clothes and our boaters' belts on.  Some of the humans on the boats dressed in their Sunday Best too, although Polar and Grizzly hadn't brought bonnets or waistcoats and bowler hats - we hope they will if we go again!

Sunday was a busy day, with more visitors, the Blessing of the Boats and our human guardian Polar taking part in the Boat Handling Competition.  Unfortunately, she had to do her manoeuvres at the same time as the Teddy Bears' Picnic was happening in the park.  We were very sad that we couldn't go, until she told us we were going to be helping her with the competition!

  

We sat in the lifebelt on the roof and waved to all the other boaters and the crowd as Polar steered our boat around the island in the middle of The Pool, avoiding the trip boats and the other competitors.  She did very well bringing the boat alongside the judges' landing stage to shake hands and started reversing back across The Pool very neatly, but made the mistake of waiting for another boat coming out to start the competition when she was half way across and the wind caught our bow and spoilt our reverse between the marker buoys.

We felt sorry for Polar, as she was trying to be polite and kind, but she was still runner up in the Women's Boat Handling class (out of more than two!) and won a bottle of prosecco, so she was quite pleased.

   

On Sunday evening there was a lovely parade of illuminated boats around The Pool, and all the boats moored in The Pool had lights and bunting out for the occasion.  Our boat didn't take part so we could wander around with our human guardians enjoying the spectacle.  I thought it was the prettiest thing I had ever seen on the canals, and all of the other bears agreed.

Monday was the last day, and it was bright and sunny again.  We had more visitors to show around and were pleased that there was still plenty to see, including musicians on some of the boats.

    

But during the afternoon, boats started drifting away and the stalls started packing up.  Polar and Grizzly helped to pack away the IWA gazebos and did sweeping up and litter picking.  

We felt sad that the festival was over but it certainly wasn't the end of our adventures, as Polar and Grizzly had decided we weren't going to go straight home, but would explore some waterways they hadn't travelled before.

 

But I will tell you more about that in another post or two!