A Banquet Fit for Bears

All that brain work solving the murder made us very hungry. We felt in need of some fish as they say it is very good brain food, don't they?

We were in luck as the excellent buffet that was provided at the party included a whole salmon. We were in bear heaven as we loaded our plates. After eating our fill we looked further round the table and were particularly struck by some terrific fruit carvings that the caterer had done. There was a banana squid and an apple swan.

We loved these so much we felt they merited a photo for the Bears Unlimited album. Apologies though that we didn't get the side profile of the swan for you to see him in all his glory, but we did get a good picture of Yorkie!


They were far too good to eat which quite suited us as it gave us a good excuse not to be healthy and to tuck into the Banoffee pie instead. It was definitely 'naughty but nice'.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie & the gang xxx

Murder at the Manor

Recently we were party to a murder! Yes there really is no limit to the situations we bears find ourselves in.

The truth is that we attended a Murder Mystery evening. It was great fun. Lord Badrubbish, who was apparently a friend of ours (in the story) got shot and we saw the body with the shot gun lying close by. We had about 16 different people to question and, shock horror, we were also suspects ourselves.

There was so much information to glean and analyse that our heads were spinning. We were shocked also at some of the naughty things we discovered people got up to and all the secrets they had to hide. We even discovered our minders doing some partner swapping (fortunately they explained later they were just acting).

Eventually time was called and we all had to say who we thought the murderer was. We had our suspicions about Bishop Crook as he was suspiciously nice when we talked to him and we were convinced he was covering something up. Imagine our surprise when we found out we had correctly identified the murderer and were the only ones at the party to do so.


We thought we were very brave to have our picture taken with a murderer don't you?

Lots of love the Bears Unlimited super sleuth team xxx

Green Paws

Did you remember to put your clocks forward last night? After a late night Wherry drinking session, we found it hard to get up this morning but were pleased, when we did, to discover it was a really lovely spring day.

While some of the gang headed for the beach (their adventures to follow), gardening bear Tommy headed for the garden. Tommy works magic in the garden and really does have green paws.

After a good tidy up which resulted in the filling of both of our two brown garden waste wheelie bins, Tommy paid a visit to a local garden centre. On his return he couldn't wait to get planting his new purchases.


Doesn't Tommy look in his element? We're really looking forward to seeing this aubretia spread across our new border which Tommy has cleverly edged with roof tiles. Keep up the good work Tommy.

Lots of love all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Fresh Air Wins the Vote

After such a big lunch, there were really only two options: to sleep it off or walk it off. After a mini conference we decided that to go for a walk would be more productive for the Hertfordshire chapter of the Friendly Planet Guide.

Our local contacts dropped us off at an access point to the Nickey Line. This is a now disused railway line which runs between Hemel Hempstead and Harpenden and provides some excellent leisure opportunities. We studied the information board to find out more.


Excuse the shadow, our minders decided to get in the way and also please don't worry about the colour of the cloud overhead. It was actually a nice day and we stayed dry.

But guess what? When we got back Chelmer said he was hungry again and ready for tea. Where does he put it all?

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Research Can Be Such Fun!

A few of us recently paid a visit to Dunstable and took the opportunity to do some research for the Friendly Planet Guide.

As we are very conscious that one of the key bit of information our readers will require, is a guide to good places to eat, we checked out one of the local restaurants, the Dragon City Chinese restaurant. In our picture you will see us posing with their huge dragon sculpture.


We were there at lunch time and they served a truly excellent buffet which was very good value as you could have a clean plate and refill it with food as often as you wanted. This was a bit of a challenge for us smaller bears as we don't polish off quite as much food as the larger bears. Chelmer, however, led the way and here you can see the size of the plates of food he was demolishing with very proficient use of chopsticks.


When he came back to Norfolk, Chelmer told us he had managed nine and a half platefuls of food which we believe is a Bears Unlimited record.

Can anyone beat this?

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited

The Simnel Cake gets a Thumbs Up

We had a special Mothering Sunday service at one of our village churches and we all went along.

Bris and Jimmy helped out with the distribution of posies of flowers and were pleased that their busy paws had prepared sufficient quantities for everyone present, not just mothers, to have a lovely posy of daffodils to take home.


We were all very impressed with the simnel cake that the Vicar had prepared and talked about in his sermon. This is often associated with Easter but we found out that originally it was given by servant girls to their mothers when they went home on Mothering Sunday, so it is more properly a Mothering Sunday cake.

We were all able to have a slice of this delicious cake with our coffee after the service. As Bris and Jimmy had been so helpful with the flowers they got to have the first slice and here we see Jimmy eagerly awaiting the cutting of the cake.


We especially liked the marzipan topping and the marzipan balls on the top of the cake. Did you know that the 12 balls represent the 12 apostles? Have the sharp eyed among you also spotted the fair trade chocolate wafers on the table?

Lots of love, Jimmy, Bris and the gang xxx

Happy Mothering Sunday to all Mothers

We thought we'd blog early today so we could remind our readers that today is Mothers Day (or more properly Mothering Sunday) and so give anyone who has forgotten a chance to pop out and buy a card and some flowers.


Being well organised bears we popped out yesterday to buy a nice big bunch of flowers for our female minder who is our proxy mother (what happens to real bear mothers is too complicated to explain in this blog).

After getting the flowers home it was time for us all to sign the card. As there are so many of us we only just managed to get all the names on, especially as we all wanted to add a big kiss. We also got Nibbles the hamster to add his paw print.


Needless to say Chef Oakley will be in action shortly to rustle up a special Mothering Sunday lunch and we'll be doing the washing up of course.

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Doing Our Bit for 'The Big One'

Bears just like to have fun, so we are always happy when Red Nose Day comes round again. Being our own bosses, it is fine for us to leave a skeleton crew manning the offices, while the rest of us try to raise as much money as possible while enjoying ourselves at the same time.

We have been out on the streets providing lots of entertainment and food samples in exchange for a donation into our collecting tin.


Today's picture shows one of the teams, led by Marmaduke, coming in for a brief breather. As you will see Kissing Cousins are doing well in their sponsored kissathon and Oscar has borrowed the big smelly nose balls from one of the bearmobiles. Henry got a little bit confused and thought it was red rose day, rather than red nose day, which is why he is clutching a red rose, but our female minder really appreciated it.

Hope you are having a good day and have joined in the fun and made a donation.

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Feel the Rhythm African Style

Good evening everybody, Chelmer bear reporting in. Regular readers may remember my session drumming with local band 'The Usual Suspects' at the end of last year which I reported on in the blog The Beat Goes On. What a great evening that was, and what an adrenalin rush I had!

Now I don't wish to boast too much, but it seems my fame as a drummer is spreading, as the other Saturday I was invited to do a spot of drumming to accompany a singing workshop.


This was quite different different to my last drumming performance. It wasn't all about noise and thrashing the drum as hard as I could. This time I had to feel the beat and just use fingers to tap out the rhythm. I couldn't help but dance as I drummed as African songs are so full of life and I just couldn't keep my feet still. I wish I'd known what everyone was singing about, but unfortunately my Swahili isn't very good.

I would have loved to take this drum home as it looked as good as it sounds, but I handed it back, leaving my business card of course, should a drummer be needed again soon.

Lots of love, Chelmer & Rocko xxx

Easy Shopping the Ethical Way

One of our minders has a birthday coming up and we couldn't think of any better place to search for a present than the Traidcraft mail order catalogue. There is just so much choice of lovely and exotic fair trade gifts, ranging from lovely patterned clothes to equisite wall hangings and carvings, jewellery and items for the house and garden. And the great thing is that these gifts are absolutley unique -you won't find them in the shops.

Sorry, but we can't tell you what we're getting our minder as she might read this. However, we can reveal that we're giving up buying nutella, having recently found out some of the awful things that go on in the cocoa platations, and are putting in a big order to Traidcraft for their fair trade chocolate hazelnut spread.

If you want to do the same checkout www.traidcraftshop.co.uk

Love from all at Bears Unlimited xxx

More Happy Munching

Taste testing fair trade products at home is all very well, but we needed to go public and win some converts to the fair trade concept. After a Bears Unlimited team meeting, we decided that the best way to achieve our goal would be to bake some delicious cakes using fair trade ingredients and then have a coffee morning in one of our local church halls, serving fair trade drinks with the cakes of course.

We thought we'd baked extra large quantities of cakes: hazelnut & chocolate brownies, fruity banana bread and pecan toffee whirls, so there would be plenty left for us to eat at the end, as you've got to admit they do sound mouth wateringly delicious!


However, we were completely bowled over by demand for our fair trade cakes. They literally flew off the plates and all our happy customers said they would now be looking for the fair trade logo next time they went shopping.

As you can see from our picture, our success meant that there wasn't much left to take home at the end. Just a couple of the hazelnut brownies topped by coffee icing. Mind you, these really do tickle a bear's taste buds as the chocolate /hazelnut combination is rather similar to that staple of a bear diet - nutella. (Note to our friend Bear, we'll send you the recipe).

The other great thing about our coffee morning is that it raised a lot of money which we will be sending off to Traidcraft.

All in all, a good morning's work.

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Taste Buds in Action

Chelmer and Rocko returned from their trip to Morrisons with lots of fair trade products. We decided to have a fair trade tasting session to critically evaluate the products and see if we could recommend them to our friends, not only on ethical grounds, but also on grounds of taste.


As you'll see from our picture we put to the test: tea, coffee, hot chocolate, wine and bananas. We all had a taste / sip of each and compared tasting notes. Not surprisingly the wine proved to be the most popular but that probably says more about the audience than the product!

The verdict from us all is, buy fair trade products as they do taste good as well as doing the producers a lot of good.

We do like a win/win situation.

Lots of love, Chef Oakly and the tasting team xxx

Congrats from Suffolk Branch

Great oaks from tiny acorns grow! Not that Suffolk Branch is implying Norfolk Branch are nuts despite their liking for Nutella but who'd have thought you'd be blogging away so energetically 7 months and 100 blogs later! Definitely worth a few party poppers and some bubbly - although to our disappointment the party poppers were a bit of a phut rather than a big bang! Unfortunately Panda the cat (not to be confused with Panda the Panda and Pilchard, Snowy and Black Cat the cats!) couldn't be persuaded to stay still long enough to join in the official Suffolk Branch centenary photo but rest assured he had a big bowl of champagne and sends his congratulations along with the rest of the gang. Hope you left us some cake!

Please Support Fair Trade Fortnight

As we hope our readers are aware, it's currently Fair Trade fortnight. We, at Bears Unlimited, are very enthusiastic supporters of Fair Trade products and we really want the growers of the products we enjoy, to earn a fair wage. We can't bear to think of it being otherwise.

Yesterday Rocko and I (Chelmer) popped along to our local Morrison's supermarket where we usually shop. We wanted to make sure that Fair trade fortnight was being properly advertised in the store and there was lots of attention drawn to fair trade products.

We got off to a good start, finding an advertising board in the shop entrance.


However, we did have to turn it round as we thought it important that shoppers saw it as they came in, not as they left (there was a different advert on the other side).

As we toured the shop, we did get increasingly disappointed. Although there were fair trade products on sale there was nothing to draw attention to them and no promotional material.

We will have to write to Mr Morrison as we don't think it is good enough. We hope you will do the same if your supermarket is not giving enough support to fair trade fortnight.

In the meantime, talking of Morrison's, Blue Bear is currently checking out Bearmobile 2 as she was filled up with petrol on the very day the fuel scare hit the news. Paws crossed everybody!

Lots of love Chelmer, Rocko and the gang xxx

Party Time!

Today is a very special day in the life of our blog as we are publishing our 100th posting. Such an auspicious occasion called for a celebration, so earlier chef Oakley and his assistants got busy in the kichen baking a clebration cake.


N.B. the recipe book isn't standing up on it's own, Raj is behind it reading out the all important instructions, but due to his dark fur and the fact he had forgotten his glasses, you can't see too much of him!

What a delicious chocolate cake they made. Nutella was an important ingredient of course. Such a special cake deserves a photo of it's own. Well done Oakley & team.


We were pleased to be able to share this special occasion with members of the Midlands branch, Rajah, Rupert & Confection who came up specially. For once we decided to forgo our usual favourite tipple of a glass of Wherry and celebrate in style with some champagne. We hope you like the official photograph. Members of the Suffolk branch were of course with us in spirit, and we drank a toast to them.


We look forward to the next 100 blogs, hope you do too.

Love from all at Bears Unlimited xxx