Honing Our Survival Skills

After recently blogging about the arrival of spring, with a perverse kind of bearish logic, we now want to wind things back and take you back to last month's wintry snap, when a number of us went on a winter survival skills for small bears course in Yorkshire, and had lots of fun in the snow.


As you can see we timed our course quite well and arrived when there was plenty of snow. It was just as well as the course could have required lots of imagination without the snow. We were lucky though, as not only did we have lots of snow, we had sunshine to go with it. The only problem was that the combination of blue sky and snow, made all the countryside look so stunning that it was tempting just to sit and stare, rather than get on with the business of survival.

We were also very lucky in that we had some wonderful accommodation for our off duty time. The log burner was a special treat as it did get very cold at night.


Learning to light the log burner and keep it burning efficiently, was one of our course lessons. It was good to be able to practise indoors, rather than outside.

More to come

Lots of love, small bears at Bears Unlimited xxx

The Honey Wagon Visits

We like to listen to Chris Evans' show on Radio 2 when we're driving home in the bearmobiles. The bit we especially like is when children phone in to say what they've done for the first time that day. This week older folk have been allowed to phone in, and, after experiencing a first today, we wondered whether we should phone in to report it.

So what did we do for the first time today? Here it is ...


Yes, we had one of our local farmers come round with his honey wagon to empty our septic tank. It was very interesting and there were lots of furry faces pressed to the window to watch proceedings. The reason we were inside, and not out, was to avoid the rather fragrant pong which rose into the air, as a good layer of sludge was disturbed and pumped out. We thought we were quite clever in sending a minder out to do the negotiations. You can't see our friendly farmer very well, as he was crouched down over the tank, almost in it - he was brave!

Our other minder was allowed to stay indoors as it is her birthday. After this initial excitement we've had a very fine day helping her celebrate.

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Spring is Here

Our spirits have all been lifted by such a wonderful sunny start to spring. It hasn't been all play for us though, and the B.U. woodsbears have been beavering away (literally) all weekend at a huge pile of wood which has been salvaged, with permission, following hedge cutting in the churchyard.


The huge ivy covered heap of wood was tackled enthusiastically, but safely, with axes. Stripping the ivy off was a back breaking task, but it is true that many paws make light work. Patrick was excused as he needed to cheer his side on to victory in the Six Nations Rugby tournament. His passionate support clearly did the trick and you couldn't have found a happier bear anywhere, when Ireland won the Grand Slam.

The rest of us felt we had earned our celebratory pint of Guinness as a reward for all our hard work which you can see in our next picture.


Tommy and Rocco found plenty of signs that spring has arrived on their walk in some local woods. They found so much frogspawn that Tommy decided he must think seriously about building a pond in the B.U. garden.


Bris and Gio came back from the church service they went to this morning full of smiles. Some wonderfully crafted Mothering Sunday gifts had been given out: handmade boxes with heart shaped chocolates inside.


You may be thinking that Bris & Gio are neither ladies or mothers and of course you are right. They were lucky that there were some spares and who could resist such charming furry faces?

Lots of love and a Happy Mothers Day to all our female readers,

all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Doodling Along to Rum Doodles

It seems only right to end our tales of our Nepal adventures in the way that all good trips to Nepal end, and that is with a visit to the famous Rum Doodles' restaurant in Kathmandu.

Rum Doodles is quite an institution in Nepal and anyone who's anyone, has been there. This includes virtually all Everest summiteers who finish their expedition with a trip to Rum Doodles, sign the special wooden Everest summiteers board, and get free food at the restaurant for life.

And the food is good, hearty food, fit for mountaineers. Just look at the size of our veggie burger! And the chips were good too.


The other unique thing about Rum Doodles is all the footprint cutouts which hang from the ceilings, walls and just about every available space. They tell the story of lots of previous groups' trip of a lifetime and have been collected over 20 years.

Naturally our trekking group wanted to complete one and, as we were present in Rum Doodles on Halloween night, it seemed only appropriate that ours should have a Halloween theme. We can't claim credit for the idea to turn a Himalayan peak into a witch's hat, but we do think it was inspired. Here is the finished result which we helped to draw. Hope you like it.


We also hope that any of our readers who visit Kathamndu and Rum Doodles in the months and years to come, will keep a look out for our footprint and let us know if they see it.

And so our wonderful trip to Nepal draws to a close. We hope you've enjoyed reading as much as we've enjoyed the writing.

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

Peacock Spotting

As we continued our stroll round Bhaktapur, our guide took us to see a very famous window, mentioned in all the guide books as something worth seeing. This was the Peacock Window, which is also sometimes called the 'Mona Lisa of Nepal' (perhaps like us, when you see our picture, you'll wonder why - we failed to spot the resemblance).

Perhaps the name simply refers to the fact that it is an artistic treasure, being a rare masterpiece in wood. Just look at the intricate carving of the peacock, it's wonderful.


And to think that it was carved back in the 15th century and has been looking over the streets of Bhaktapur for all those years. Given how exquisite it is, it is surprising that it is found on, quite a hard to find, back street.

As we looked at the carving we had a strange sense of deja vu, although we couldn't quite place it. That was, until we returned to our hotel and headed up the stairs to our room. It was then that we saw it; a fine, highly polished copy of the peacock window.


This was great as we could get up close and get a really good look, and no-one was going to tell us off for touching. We were surprised that we had walked past it so many times on our holiday and not really noticed it before.

lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

Being Funny For Money

We hope your pockets and purses are now suitably empty, as you've been busy supporting lots of Red Nose Day events. If you haven't, there's still plenty of time to get your credit cards out and start phoning, and remember, that a mosquito net to save a child's life in Africa, costs only £5.


As you can see the bearmobiles have been sporting car red noses (thanks Suffolk branch for the original one) and we have been wearing red noses, which can be a little big for bears, as Patrick demonstrates.

We really enjoyed watching the Kilimanjaro climb last night and it is one we would really like to do, although after their experiences in Nepal, we're not sure our minders could cope with the altitude. Would we be cruel enough to go on our own and leave them behind?!

We'll be watching a few more sketches tonight and are especially looking forward to seeing the outcome of the Apprentice - but we've still got to watch last night's episode first.

It's going to be a busy evening and we mustn't distract our readers any more from pledging some money.

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Temple Touring

Our time in Kathmandu was rapidly drawing to an end but there was still time for a couple more fascinating visits.

The first was to one of Hinduism's most holy sites, the Pashputinath Temple. It's very old and it attracts thousands of pilgrims each year. The temple is located on the Holy Bagmati River and devout Hindus will want to cremate their deceased loved ones on the cremation ghats beside the river.

Being non Hindus, we were only allowed on the non-temple side of the river, but we were able to see cremation ceremonies taking place. It seemed to be a very dignified end to life and we watched discretely, with an interest that was curious rather than ghoulish (we hope!).

We didn't think this blog is the place to share photos of the temple which include the cremation ghats, but we will show you a picture we took of some of the many temple monkeys.


We're not in the picture, as monkeys can move surprisingly fast and we would have been whisked off to a monkey's den, had we paused within grabbing range.

From Pashpatinath, it was off to the ancient city of Bhaktapur. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its rich and abundant culture, with vast numbers of historic temples and artworks.

It is a lovely, quiet and unspoilt place. You can take time to admire the treasures without the risk of being mown down by traffic or pushed out the way by hurrying people.


It was very hot in the main (durbar) square so it was lovely to find a shady spot for lunch, from which, we could look out over the square and watch comings and goings.

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

Getting Arty

Although we'd already toured Kathmandu at the start of our trip, there was still plenty for us to see during the final two days of our holiday.

We couldn't believe the size of the Buddhist stupa we went to see. When your legs are as short as ours our, it takes quite a while to walk round (clockwise of course in Buddhist fashion).


The bit you're looking at was just the top-most portion, there was plenty more that wouldn't fit in the camera, and we ourselves were too small to show up.

Very close to this stupa was a tanka painting school. Our guide took us in to have a look round and to find out all about tanka painting from the proprietor. Tankas are very intricate paintings, on fabric, of aspects of Buddhism. The Buddha and the wheel of life feature quite predominantly.

We were able to look over the shoulders of several of the students who were hard at work. The detail they were first drawing, and later painting, was incredibly fine. The brushes they were using couldn't have contained more than a couple of hairs to achieve that level of detail. We could tell they hadn't been sinking some Everest beers the night before, otherwise they would never have had a steady enough hand.


We had the opportunity to look at some of the completed paintings for sale, and here we are doing just that. They were amazing, and given all the labour that goes into them, not unreasonably priced. Two of our party did in fact buy one.

The proprietor was very proud of an article that had appeared in a major English newspaper about his school, and he had a copy prominently displayed on his counter (we're sitting by it). We were able to assure him that still greater fame would be coming his way, as he would soon be featuring in our blog!

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

The Kathmandu Illuminations

And now, we return to Nepal. If you recall, we had just arrived back in Kathmandu, and our return coincided with a special event in the Hindu calendar. The Diwali festival was well underway and had actually reached the fifth and final night, the brother sister festival, which is a very happy family occasion, with sweets and gifts being exchanged.

Diwali is a festival of lights symbolising the triumph of good over evil and the lifting of spiritual darkness. Lights are strung everywhere, and Kathmandu looked very festive. We were especially pleased that our hotel was well decked out with lights.


It was simply lovely sitting out on our hotel balcony and savouring the holiday atmosphere and seeing all the lights.

When we went out for a meal there was even more to see. Whole areas of road were beautifully decorated with incredible mandalas made of exquisitely coloured sand.


We thought they were so beautiful that it was a shame they were so temporary. At least we had the privilege of seeing them at their finest.

It was all very exciting.

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx