Marvellous Merino!

From the beautiful and sunny English Lakes, we return to the, not quite so sunny, island of Malta, before our wonderful adventure fades from memory.

While we were in Malta, we went on a blanket tour. No doubt many of readers will know all about these tours, as we gather they're quite common across Europe, but we'd never heard of them, so we'll explain for the benefit of the uninitiated.

What happens is that at your resort welcome meeting, someone comes along and offers you a free excursion to a area of interest that is slightly off the beaten track of the main tourist trail. In return you attend a presentation of some sleep products for an hour or so.

Our tour started with a coach pickup and a drive down to the resort of Sliema. On the way we had some very interesting commentary from an ex pat who has been living in Malta for several years. We enjoyed this as, while the local Maltese buses were very good, they didn't include any commentary.

Our destination was a posh hotel and we were welcomed with glasses of bucks fizz. We settled down to enjoy our presentation which was surprisingly entertaining and informative. We learnt all about how to get a good night's sleep and, being outgoing bears, Yorkie and I volunteered for some of the demonstrations. We really didn't feel the knife, fork and plate under the mattress topper!

At the end of the presentation we rejoined our coach to head out on our 'reward' excursion. We went to 'the 3 cities' area which to quote the Visit Malta web site, 'offer an intriguing insight into Malta and its history. Left largely unvisited, these cities are a slice of authentic life as well as a glimpse into Malta's maritime fortunes.'


This picture gives you a good flavour of the area. We were taken on a walking tour by our ex pat guide who was a mine of fascinating information and showed us lots of things we would otherwise have missed. A lot of the tour was along the waterfront and we passed lots of huge luxury yachts worth millions of pounds each, no doubt.

It was fascinating to compare these playthings of the very rich to their historical backdrop. There was some incredible architecture which, in Malta, somehow seems to be very much taken for granted.

We learnt that Malta only had a railway for a very short length of time, so we felt a bit sorry for this lovely steam engine, left high and dry and very redundant.


We knew train buff Blue Bear would want to see it, so we took several pictures for him. He'd not come with us as he'd heard that there were no trains in Malta!

And did the blanket tour persuade us to part with any money? We have to report that were sufficiently convinced of the benefits of merino wool bedding that we have subsequently bought a merino wool pillow for our female minder and she simply loves it!

Lots of love, George and the Malteser bears xxx

Lake District jaunt

Greetings from Suffolk Branch in hot and sunny Keswick! We've been enjoying a multi activity break in preparation for our India trek later in the year. Our main priority was to restore full power to our legs so plenty of steep climbs were on the agenda - Scafell Pike and Cat Bells for example. Here is Polly relaxing in the sun and admiring the view on top of Cat Bells - moments later a Hercules, Tornado and Typhoon were to fly past and wake Polly from her reverie.

Thinking of Chelmer and his nature notes, we thought he'd like a picture of some very pretty primroses in Great Wood - they were lovely but brought on an early bout of hay fever afterwards!

Finally, in case we have to cross any rivers in India, Polly decided to test out her canoeing skills but sadly the Banana Guard makeshift canoe was a bit leaky - oops! Hope next month's canal boat is more shipshape. Polly was soon forced to abandon ship and go for a swim instead - it was certainly warm enough!

Suffolk Branch enjoy a bit of culture so it was next stop Castlerigg Stone Circle and then a final debrief in the very fine Cafe 26 wine bar which concluded a very successful training mission. Cheers!

Chelmer's Nature Notes is Back

We've had a very exciting week in our Norfolk Bear Cave, all thanks to a rather unusual visitor of the feathered variety.

Earlier in the week, our male minder was working in the kitchen and noticed a tiny bird on the bush right outside the kitchen window. It wasn't one he recognised, and it was behaving quite unusually, in as much as it seemed desperate to join him in the kitchen. He took a photo and brought it up to show me. When I saw it, I was quite astounded, as it was no common or garden bird; it was, as you can see ...


... the most beautiful goldcrest (Europe's smallest bird!)

Curly and I rushed down and were delighted to find that this is a very sociable bird who pays numerous visits each day to our kitchen window. He, or she, is not at all bothered by activity in the kitchen, in fact the more there is, the more he perches on the window sill and tries to join us.

We can get right up close to the window ...


... and it is truly fascinating having such a close up view of such an interesting and beautiful bird.

It's certainly been the highlight of our year (nature-wise) so far. Mind you. we're not getting much work done as a result - one of the reasons that there hasn't been a post for a while!

Lots of love, Chelmer, Curly and all the chaps xxx

A Des Res?

We found Malta quite intriguing as there were some really lovely bits, and others that reminded us of some of the worst aspects of the Spanish Costas. We actually think much of the blames for the latter lies with the Brits!

Remember our question to you from the other day, of whether Paradise Beach lived up to it's name or not? We're got a much easier opinion poll for you today.

We'll introduce today's question by saying that we're not great fans of beach huts - they do rather spoil a fine coastline. However, but we infinitely prefer a British beach hut to some of the Maltese equivalents. What do you think to these examples that we're sitting outside ...?


... are we sitting outside a concentration camp barracks or a 'must have' seafront property?

Sadly, these were not isolated examples. There are some areas of Malta where there are so many shack-like beach properties that we really felt like we were walking through shanty towns. We do understand that the Maltese government is trying to do something about them and it's about time we say.

The good thing about Malta though is that there's far more beautiful coastline than blighted coastline. You never have to walk very far to be back in scenery that makes your heart sing for the beauty of it.


Our second picture was taken not far on from our first and in between we'd seen some spectacular erosion giving rise to caves and arches. We certainly had to watch our paws while walking in the area of our picture as we didn't want to fall down a fissure this deep!

Lots of love, the Malteser bears xxx

Food Glorious Food

We certainly didn't lose any weight in Malta as the food was far too good and Maltese restaurants serve some big portions - remember that pizza at the start of our Maltese posts?

As we had a self-catering apartment, well- equipped with cooking equipment, and we were only a 5 minute walk from the wonderfully named Trolley's supermarket, we can give ourselves a pat on the back for much of the good food, as a lot of it was cooked by us, and eaten in house.

However, we did visit two restaurants in our resort of Bugibba to sample the local cuisine.

The first was Granny's in the main square. Granny's advertises itself as a fusion restaurant and there was a lot of choice, but we couldn't really tell if any dishes were a house speciality. We chose a 3 course Maltese menu with choices for starters and mains.


Here we are about to tuck into a plate of rabbit in a sort of curry sauce, with lots of veggies in the stew and also a portion of Asian style stir fried vegetables. We also had a bowl of chips. When you think that starters were a similar size to mains (you should have seen our plate of spaghetti) this was a lot of food even for trencherbears like us. The first 2 courses were followed by something like apple sponge cake and huge mugs of good coffee. It was great value and the food tasted o.k. but something was lacking in the way of ambience and finesse. We decided that our visit would be a one off.

On our last night though, we hit the jackpot. We walked beyond the square, out of the tourist area to the most wonderful Maltese restuarant called the Malet. We'd read about it on the internet so knew it was worth seeking out.

It more than lived up to the Trip Advisor recommendations. The surroundings were tasteful, the welcome and service perfect (attentive, but not too much so) and the food was superb. While we waited for our starters we had a complementary glass of leek and potato soup which made us very happy. When our official starter of chicken wings in a yummy, sticky, spicy sauce came they were simply to die for, as Yorkie's face shows in our next picture.


Our mains of pork stew and quails were a delight and the bottle of rose we had to wash it down with was exactly too our taste, crisp and fruity, but not too sweet. Thanks to the Maltese portion sizes, we had no room for dessert, and we ended up with a very reasonable bill.

The only disappointing thing was that we were the only customers that evening. It was so good it should have been full. We wrote a glowing review for Trip Advisor so hopefully more visitors to Bugibba will be seeking out this gem of a restaurant. If we return to Malta we certainly will.

Lots of love, the Malteser Bears xxx