Our Alternative Jubilee Celebrations

We've still got a bit of catching up to do, but now we're now going to jump straight to the beginning of June, and the week of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

The lure of a double Bank Holiday was too great to resist and we took full advantage of it, and headed, not south to join the Queen and her celebrations, but north. The Lake District was our destination, one of our favourite spots in the country.

We knew accommodation would be at a premium, with it being such a busy week, but we were crafty bears and organised ourselves some fine accommodation, at a very good price. In fact, we were guests of our good friend Mr Sleep. He came up trumps, as he has done for us many times before.


We like Mr Sleep as he makes sure that his special deals are available to us, even over a double Bank Holiday, and he puts us up in some rather less touristy places, where we can enjoy a bit of peace and quiet and escape from the crowds.

On this trip, we got to visit some interesting places on the edge of the Lake District, which we wouldn't normally have visited. We particularly enjoyed Cockermouth and Barrow in Furness. In the latter town, we enjoyed a fantastic curry at the Mithali restuarant. It sounded good on Trip Adviser and the reality was even better. This was just as well as we did have our male minder's birthday to celebrate.

In between mouthwatering courses we enjoyed a spot of elephant riding. It was kind of the restaurant to provide just the right sized elephants for both Yorkie and me.


Another plus point for the Barrow Travel Lodge, is that it was very popular with our feathered friends, but not the pigeons Mr Sleep always always asks to 'hop it', for fear of his guests losing sleep. The car park was full of geese, including some very cute babies. There was an attractive lake round the back, but for some reason they preferred the car park. Perhaps it was something to do with Dominos Pizza being close by!


You should know us well enough by now, to know that we didn't spend all of our visit eating and sleeping. We had gone to the Lakes to do some walking to prepare for a big walking adventure (which has now happened - more soon). Being hardy bears we went out in the hills even when the nice man at Lakeland Great Outdoors was predicting rain ...


... and sadly it did come soon after his warning!

We didn't walk all the time though, and we did spend a day at the races at Carlisle, thanks to a Fakenham members reciprocal. Now that was a fine sunny day, and we were happy leave the exercise to the horses on that occasion.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie and Patrick xxx

All Aboard the Skylark

Surprise! It's me, Boating Bear Eddie again. I did promptly finish the canal boating posts as requested, but I have some other boating news to share with you.

Earlier in the year, we moved up in the boating world. For a while now, we'd been finding our Otter sailing dinghy, Tarka, lovely though she was, a bit too small on two fronts:

firstly, our minders kept wanting to come sailing with me and my fellow boaters, and they do take up rather more room than us bears,

secondly, the boat wasn't big enough to take an outboard motor and sails at the same time, yet we really wanted to motor out to the Blakeney Pit sailing area from Tarka's Blakeney Quay boating home, where we had to race, and fight, the tide.

After a fair bit of research, I decided that a Wayferer sailing dinghy would be just perfect for us. At the start of the year we came across a nice man who refurbishes Wayfarers and does a rather good job of it. The first boat we enquired about had already been sold, but he had another one coming in, and a modest deposit reserved it for me.

We had to wait a while for the renovation to complete, but as it was winter, there was no hurry. On one of the coldest days of the year, we went over to the St Neot's area to collect our new boat. It was a very exciting day and she looked splendid, but as it was still winter, we tucked her up in an elderly friend's garage.


We then had to find a good home for Tarka. We were all very fond of Tarka so wanted her to go to a family who would use her and appreciate her.

Fortunately, we found the perfect family fairly quickly, through a mutual sailing friend. The children had been on a sailing taster session and liked it so much that they had joined Hickling Sailing Club to learn how to sail. The parents thought they should learn too, and needed a simple family boat to take out on the Broad.

Fortunately Tarka fitted the bill, and not so long ago, they all came round to collect Tarka and to have a lesson in rigging her ...


I think I made it look sufficiently easy and they seemed to take it all in and were very excited to have their first boat. I had a tear in my eye as Tarka was hitched up and we waved goodbye, but it was great to know she was going to a good home.

It was now time to release our new Wayfarer from hibernation and to get her out to her new home at Morston Quay. The guys and I, plus our minders, have had a great few months, choosing a name, buying an outboard and getting everything bedded down during our first few trips: initially motoring out to see the Blakeney Point seals and, more recently, sailing.


Here we are rigging the boat for the first time; as you can see, we chose a rather fine day for it. I was in seventh heaven!

You'll be hearing lots more about our sailing adventures, but for now I will just let you know the name we decided on for our new boat. She is called Skylark as it is a seemed a good name for a Norfolk Boat and also because I just couldn't resist being able to say, "All aboard the Skylark?!''.

Back soon, lots of love Eddie xxx