Bear Rescue ... or ... a New Face at the Midlands Branch

The Midlands Branch were very pleased to welcome Pooh Bear to their ranks last week. His coming was rather extraordinary and worthy of a whole blog entry.

As we live so close to the canals where the Norfolk Branch were enjoying their holiday, we at the Midlands Branch, accepted the invitation to get some hands-on experience and to have a day out on the M.V. ERIK who you have been hearing all about over the last few days.

While we were chugging along enjoying the lovely countryside, Eddie and Jimmy who were on the 12-4 watch, suddenly heard bear cries from the canal bank and jumped up and down with excitement inside their lifebelt on the sundeck. They got the binoculars out and spotted a Pooh Bear hanging precariously in a tree having lost his balance in the excitement of possible rescue.


Eddie & Jimmy's minders skillfully brought ERIK alongside the bank and Eddie rushed forward ready to grab hold of the distressed bear. At just the right moment he reached up and got a secure hold on Pooh Bear.


After he had got his breath back, Pooh Bear told us he had been dropped from a pushchair a few days previously. He was very sad when his absence was not noticed and shed a few tears, but he felt sure someone would come along and rescue him. A gentleman came along the following day and picked up Pooh but decided the owner would surely come along soon, so to make him more obvious, he was placed up in the tree. This is where the we found him as we arrived on the scene.

It was agreed that as Pooh Bear was found on our patch it was right that he should join our branch of Bears Unlimited. After a shower and warm towelling down, he was as right as rain. His new minders can not help smiling at his happy expression after his traumatic adventure (you'll see what they mean if you view the Midlands Branch profile on our home page.

Pooh Bear we welcome you most heartily.

P.S. Least anyone doubt it this is a true story and not a photographic set-up!

Lots of love from the Midlands Branch xxx

Working My Passage

Canal boating can be a great way to relax and watch the world go by. However, for the real enthusiast, and I (Eddie) count myself one, the real fun comes in working your passage. I am hard pressed to decide whether I like locking or steering the boat best.

I guess that as I can steer at any time, and locks come up only intermittently, there is always a great excitement about winding the paddles to work the boat through a lock.


Fortunately I'm a big enough bear to manage a lock gate on my own, even though they are quite heavy and I usually have to have a rest after opening or shutting a gate. Some of the smaller bears have to work together to combine enough strength to manage a lock gate.

Steering, however, is also great fun as it is quite a challenge. The boats are long (50 feet on average) and the canals are narrow so sometimes you have to be really accurate in your steering to pass other boats, bridges, get into locks etc. And of course a narrow boat is nothing like these plastic tubs (as you can tell, I disapprove) that you see all too many of in our part of the world. These cabin cruisers, have a wheel, which is cheating, rather than a traditional tiller, which you always get on a narrow boat.


As you can see from my picture, sometimes in my excitement I forget my extra high stool for bear steering, required becasue of my short legs, and I have to beg some assistance from a minder while one of the other bears goes to find the stool.

I'm guessing that short legs wouldn't have been very good for legging through tunnels as they had to do when boats were horse drawn. Perhaps it's as well boats have engines now, but it would have been fun to meet a few working horses on the tow path.

Lots of love, Eddie & crew xxx

Will it Float ... Eventually?

After passing through the big lock flight at Foxton we looked out for Debdale Wharf marina as we have friends who live there on board on narrow boat called Drake. We think it is a very romantic idea, living on a narrow boat and we were keen to look round and see the difference between a hire boat such as Erik and a live aboard boat.

We found Drake in the marina and her owners were at home. Drake is the fine blue boat with the red front moored next to the restoration project (not yet one of ours, but it could be a good way of keeping in touch with our friends).


We had a thorough look round and were very impressed by the imaginative use of space. There was even a bath and a full size double bed - much better than the 4ft doubles on hire boats - not that that is a problem for bears, just their minders.

While we were looking round the marina we found a very interesting boat that seemed to have forgotten something, basically it's other half.


George & Yorkie were very intrigued and climbed aboard. They wondered if they should search round for the missing parts. They thought they might have to wait around a long time if they were to be present at the launch party!

Lots of love, the boating bears xxx

The Hares & the Tortoise

After emerging from the gloom of the tunnels we needed to put our sunglasses on while our eyes adjusted to the bright sunshine. Later that morning we passed under the A14, a busy road that we frequently travel along when we go to visit the Midlands Branch, and we always look out for the canal when in the Bearmobile. We love it when our our travel experience is the other way round and we are in the fresh air, sedately chugging and completely relaxed. We don't envy the people rushing along on their tin cans and wouldn't swap for anything. 3 m.p.h. is infinitely preferably to us and we could get very used to this pace of life.

We tried to capture the lorries thundering along on our photo of us passing under the A14 but strangely enough there aren't any in our picture.


We had a similar problem when we passed under the main railway line. A train crossed just after we'd taken our photo.

Another set of travellers we didn't envy were the visitors to Watford Gap services on the M1. We don't suppose many of the travellers who pull in to these services realise that the Grand Union canal passes right beside the parking area. We like the section in one of the canal guides which said that if you were running low on supplies and needed refreshment a visit to the services could be considered, but you'd need to be desperate. Fortunately we weren't!

Lots of love, the crew of Erik xxx

Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head

Well actually it was drips from the roof of the tunnel that kept falling on our fur, particularly in the Crick tunnel which was a very wet one. We're not sufficiently well up on beauty treatments to know if the minerals contained in roof drips are good for your fur, but we'll hope they are as we each got a good shower. The positive side about all the roof drips was that there were some great stalactite formations which showed up in Erik's headlight ( we think we've got that the right way round).

That Sunday morning we travelled through well over 4 kilometres of tunnels so we're tunnel veterans now and well practised at seeing in the dark. Mindful of the saying that there's always light at the end of the tunnel we kept focussing on the speck of light in the distance and this stopped us going tunnel crazy.

Here you see Eddie taking a break from steering and getting excited about seeing the tunnel exit approaching.


As we've said before, although we all love boating, Eddie simply lives for it. We think it must be the most important thing in his life (after Bears Unlimited). We therefore couldn't resist including a picture of Eddie's 'I'm very happy to be boating face'. What a great picture of contentment!



Lots of love, the crew of Erik xxx

Going Underground!

Hello everybody, sorry we've kept you in the dark about how our boating adventures were going, but we've yet to find an internet cafe alongside a canal or a wi-fi enabled narrow boat (could this be yet another Bears Unlimited business venture?)

We're now safely home having had a marvellous holiday, and we're eager to share our holiday pics and experiences with you.

We last blogged from a Golden Wedding party we left our boat to attend. It was a great party with good company and lots to eat and drink. It was held at the Midlands Branch office which is how we had access to a computer to make our first report.

The next morning we were up with the sun (actually you'll see from Eddie's photo that it was still misty) and cast off before breakfast - the great thing about boating is that as your house goes with you, you can do all these mundane things whilst underway.


This was Sunday, and it was tunnel day. We went through three really long, dark and sometimes wet tunnels. The longest, Braunston tunnel was 2,042 yards (that's long!) and the shortest, Bosworth Tunnel was 1,166 yards (that's still long!). The Braunston tunnel is challenging as it has several kinks in it and we had to pass a boat coming ther other way. Fortunately Eddie, our most experienced boater, was at the helm and his nerve held and we passed without the slightest touch. We all looked out for the ghost which inhabits the tunnel but we didn't see anything - perhaps it was too early in the morning. Here's our, 'about to enter the tunnel' picture.



Tomorrow we'll show you our 'in tunnel' picture.

Lots of love, the crew of Erik xxx

Afloat Aboard Erik

This afternoon our eagerly anticipated adventure began when we picked up our narrow boat from a wharf near Rugby. We are very pleased with our boat and think it has a great name. It is called Erik, which when you understand it is a Vikings Afloat boat, is a most appropriate name we think and we are proud to sail aboard her.

Boating is a very popular bear activity so there is always a big contingent of Bears Unlimited members wanting to come along. Being chief boating bear I, Eddie, am always present. Chelmer is still eager to give his brother Spike and friends a great stay so has brought them all along. You will hear from others here as the week goes on, and as we are so close to the Midlands branch home base, we will be having visitors throughout the week.

We were very pleased to set off in sunshine and, paws crossed, the forecast is good for the next few days. We got into a bit of a traffic jam at the first set of locks when we got stuck behind a couple of boats which were just leaving their hire bases and lacked the locking experience of our Bears Unlimited crew. However, relaxing in the sunshine was no hardship and we had time to take in a few natural sightings such as this swan nesting in some lovely bullrushes. We chugged until 7.00 p.m. and then were lucky to get one of the last moorings in the popular canal village of Braunston. We are just back from a visit to a pub in the village where the food was very good and so was the beer. We happily downed a pint or two of Black Sheep bitter.


There is no doubt about it, we are very contented bears tonight.
(We're posting the next day when we found an internet connection).

Lots of love, Eddie and friends xxx

Shiver Me Timbers ...

Today a number of us are very, very excited as we are about to go off on an exciting new adventure.

The picture below, of me, Eddie, doing some research ready for our latest travels, provides a clue.

Can you guess what type of adventure it is?

I will tell you lots more as our trip unfolds.

Lots of love Eddie xxx

Chocks Away, the Sky's the Limit!

Having friends to stay is always fun and we aim to give them as good a time as we can. And so, when my brother Spike and a group of his friends arrived for a visit last week, I (Chelmer) came up with a really good idea for making his visit one he will always remember.

At the recent murder mystery evening we attended, we met a very nice man, Sqn Ldr Wan Flewover (Rtd). In real life he is an instructor for a Jaguar Simulator at RAF Coltishall. As he took a shine to us bears, he offered any of us who fancied it, a trip in a Jaguar (via the simulator). Being an action bear, I leaped at the opportunity and asked if I could take Spike along too, as I knew he'd love it.

We arrived bright and early and got a full briefing on what all the different knobs and dials were for. We first got a birds eye view of the cockpit and tried hard to remember what everything did.


We them jumped into the pilot's seat, the hatch was slid shut and off we went with the G forces pinning us to the seat . For our exercise we took off from RAF Valley in Wales (where the fast jet training for the RAF takes place) and quickly hit over 600 MPH.


We then took a fast turn and flew straight under the bridges on the Menai Strait, then decided to go up to 6000 ft before trying out a series of acrobatic exercises, including a Barrel Roll and a Loop the Loop. By now the adrenalin was really pumping and we couldn't stop the whoops of delight.

The instructor decided to give us a bit more of a challenge and sent up a few missiles which we managed to avoid by the skin of our teeth. Spike quickly struck back by launching a few laser guided missiles. As we were doing so well (the instructor later told us we were natural fliers) we were then given some advanced challenges (bird strikes and engine failure). We almost got through, although we did have a crash and had to get the flight restarted. We then headed for home slicing past Snowdon scaring a lone walker on Crig Goch, and then back into Valley for a fairly smooth landing. It was an exhilarating ride and we landed quite exhausted but very excited.

We then went down into the control room where we were shown all the controls that the instructor has at his disposal to set up all the challenges and test the trainees. If we had had more time we would have loved to have a go at instructing our minder who had come with us.


All in all an experience of a lifetime and we will be living on the memories for may weeks to come. So that we can sure it was not all a dream we were presented with a certificate to say that we had successfully completed our maiden flight.


Lots of love from a thrilled Chelmer and Spike xxx

Happy Easter (Part 2)

Another reason that we like Easter so much is because of the great food that is associated with it.

Bears just love Hot Cross buns especially toasted with real butter. In fact Sebastian and Marmaduke like them so much that they said they would be happy to eat nothing else but Hot Cross buns all day, provided the local shop could bake enough to satisfy their bear sized appetites.

In our first picture you see these two guys tucking into their breakfast buns. As you can see from Sebastian's face eating buns is a serious business.


By the time it gets to Easter Sunday, however, we have satisfied our Hot Cross bun craving sufficiently to get excited about chocolate Easter eggs. Buying Easter eggs this year has, however, been a bit difficult for us. Let us tell you why. As you will know from recent blogs we are keen supporters of Fair Trade and have undertaken to only buy Fair Trade chocolate as we won't buy from companies that condone child slave labour.

We are very unhappy with the leading supermarkets as the range of Fair Trade Easter eggs on sale has been very poor, for some of our friends it was non-existent, they failed to secure a Fair Trade egg after visiting 3 major supermarkets. We feel some 'disappointed of Norfolk' letters to the supermarket managers coming on.


As you see in our picture above we did have some success but we would have liked more choice. We tracked down a 'Divine' Fair Trade egg, which turned out to be a good one as it included chocolate brazils, another bear favourite. As this was the only Fair Trade egg we found we had to make do with the CO-OPs selection of Fair Trade chocolates as an alternative. Although this box of chocs is disappointingly not egg shaped, we do have to admit they are worth having as there are some rather special flavours. How do Berry Burst, Fudge Crunch and Madagascan Vanilla sound to you? For our nutella loving friend Bear, there is even one called 'nut heaven'.

Hopefully in our Easter blog next year things will be different, and there will be so much choice we will have to make decisions about which Fair Trade egg to buy, here's hoping!

Have a lovely holiday Monday,

Lots of love from all at B.U. xxx

Happy Easter (Part 1)

We like Easter a lot, so much so that we're going to break new ground and have 2 blogs today.

We've spent quite a bit of time in church this week remembering the events of Holy Week. After the sombre events of the Last Supper and Good Friday we were full of the joys of spring this morning as we came to join in the celebrations of Easter Sunday - the fact that the sun was shining when we got up, got the day off on just the right footing.


I (George) was honoured to have the job of lighting the Paschal candle. This represents the risen Christ, as a symbol of light dispelling darkness (death). It burns throughout the Easter period (up until the Ascension) and is a powerful and important symbol.

As it was Easter Sunday we had lots of good hymns to sing and we all belted out our favourite 'Thine be the Glory' at the tops of our voices. If you haven't heard a bear choir in action before, you should come and hear us as we fair raise the roof.


The smaller bears and Billy the Puffin were able to take a close up look at the Easter garden. They peered into the tomb to confirm it was indeed empty and Yorkie said he didn't really need the angel there to confirm it as he could see for himself. Yorkie also said that as he was a bear, he was definitely 'bearing' witness to the resurrection, wasn't he?

Part 2 to follow shortly.

Lots of love , George, Yorkie & Co xxx

Made in Norfolk

Another of our favourite programmes is Grand Designs. We are frequently amazed, at peoples' lack of control over spiralling costs. Sometimes it is unavoidable, and we always feel sorry for these people, but often people bring it on themselves, particularly when they keep changing their minds, and it is causing us to think that setting up some 'controlling your finances' workshops might be a new business line for Bears Unlimited.

We are often a bit behind in our viewing as we lead such busy lives, but recently we watched an episode where a thatched building had been destroyed by fire and was being rebuilt bigger and better than before. We felt quite proud that all of the reed for the thatch was supplied from a place in Norfolk not far from where we live.


On one of our recent strolls we watched the reed cutters at work and helped to protect a load of freshly cut reed from the elements and to get it ready for loading onto a lorry.

We can also happily confirm that there is plenty more reed where that lot came from, which is good news for our local bird and animal friends and our lovely North Norfolk landscape.

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Survival SAS Style

Our favourite TV programme at the moment is 'Born Survivor' which features our hero, Bear Grylls. Bear is also our friend Bear's hero, and why not, with a name like that!

In the programme he parachutes into really inhospitable parts of the world and has to survive and find his way to safety with just the clothes he is wearing, a flint, a waterbottle and a knife. So far he has tackled jungle, snow and ice, alligator infested swamp and remote mountains.

Our mouths drop open in amazement as we watch all the situations he manages to deal with. We enjoy guessing where he is going to sleep what he going to eat next but we are not sure we would manage the live frog and snake eating. Knowing our luck we wouldn't kill with the first bite and would end up with dinner wriggling in our tums.

The programmes have made us think that perhaps we should ensure that all Bears Unlimited members have some basic survival training.


As a joint effort we have therefore started putting together a course which we will all do in small groups.

In our first picture you see our two 'guinea pigs', Charlie and Bart, heading out into the woods to start their survival exercise (note the definite lack of equipment and supplies).

They proved a particularly good pair at finding places to shelter, first a hollowed out tree:


and second, a den closer to ground, again making use of a tree, this time a dead one. Don't worry we didn't make them stay out overnight - they only had to demonstrate that they knew what to do which they clearly did.


This pair came back with huge appetites so they might not have done quite so well on the food front but who can blame them!

Lots of love, all members of the Bear Grylls fan club xxx

We are Techno Bears!

As you will know by now, the Bears Unlimited brand covers an incredible variety of skills and trades, ranging from teaching Chinese to growing lavender and running seal trips.

Rather less interesting, but an important money earner for the Company, is I.T. consultancy. Bears Unlimited was recently awarded the contract to install a new network at a Norfolk Housing Association. We had to undertake this work at the weekend when all users were off the system and out of the office. This suited us well as we like to be left to get on with the job.


The job required a clear head to sort out all the various network cables. Yorkie kept out of the way as he said it was all spaghetti to him, but Chelmer, Rocko and myself (George) quickly had it all under control.

The job went so well that we finished the network commissioning and testing ahead of schedule. This left us some time to do some servicing of the photocopiers and printers.


As they were all working fine we were able to print out our invoice and leave it behind, so hopefully we will get a prompt payment and be able to put our next order of Wherry bitter in to the Woodforde's Brewery.

Don't forget where to come if you have a tricky job as it is quite likely that Bears Unlimited will be able to help.

Lots of love, the Bears Unlimited I.T. Team xxx

A Feast for the Ears

Yesterday we were very cultured bears. We went to hear Sheringham & Cromer Choral Society's performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion. We attended to support our female minder who was singing in it, but we do have an ear for fine music so we were more than happy to go.


With double choir and orchestra there must have been about 200 people performing so there wasn't a massive amount of room for the audience, especially as Bears Unlimited members occupied 5 rows. They managed to squeeze a lot of people in, however, and there was a good turn out.

The work was sung in full and lasts nearly 3 hours so it was necessary to make a start at 6.00 p.m. We therefore went prepared with sandwiches and picnic set. Out of respect for the work and the occasion, we decided to leave our Wherry supplies at home. Unfortunately the second interval had to be cancelled as to have it would have meant the orchestra would miss their train back to London. We therefore discretely munched while the performance was taking place, making sure we didn't eat any noisy food.

We thought it was a very fine performance although Chelmer thought it a shame that there were no drums as he was going to ask if he could have a go. A number of us have good singing voices so we're going to offer our services as soloists for the next concert.

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx