Happy New Year

Sorry, it was a bit re-miss of us not to wish all our loyal readers a Happy Christmas -  we did actually wish you one in spirit, if not in writing - so we'd like to be amongst the first to wish you a Happy, healthy and successful New Year.

As always we had a lovely Christmas and hope yours was equally good.

A few days before the big day, we were fortunate to play host to Mary, Joseph and the donkey who were travelling round various homes in our village, seeking a meal and a bed for the night as they journeyed to Bethlehem. We thought it might be nice to take them out for a meal, especially as we had other guests staying with us, in the form of Clanger and Eeyore.

And so, we took them to the Thai restaurant at Fakenham, once we learned that they'd never tried Thai food. Needless to say, a good time was had by all and the Thai curries proved a hit. 

Going racing over the Christmas period definitely makes the festive period go with a swing for us, and we managed to get our racing fix in, with a Boxing Day visit to Towcester.  

Santa Bear is our newest convert to racing and was thrilled to see horses entering into the festive spirit, with Santa hats (look hard) and saddle tinsel on others.

Another Christmas period essential is a good walk and we were blessed with some good walking weather over the Christmas break. We took the oldest member of Bears Unlimited, Squirrel Nutkin, with us and he had a great time, even admitting to preferring our sandwiches to nuts.

We're pleased to report that Curly didn't actually fall in the canal, even though it looks like he's losing his balance.

And now it's New Years Eve. We're having a relaxing evening at home by the fire, with plenty of home brew and no doubt a bottle of fizz.  We've been joined once again by Mary, Joseph and the donkey, who now have the Baby Jesus with them ...

... clearly that hot curry played a part in ensuring the baby arrived in time!

A Happy New Year to you all.

Lots of love

All at Bears Unlimited xxx

Camp Wars

So, when we left you last time, we were just about to arrive at our campsite, not far from that lovely lake adorned with prayer flags. We passed a friendly yak on the way ...

We couldn't see the lake from our tents but it was a lovely spot nonetheless. The official camping ground was the far side of the dirt track in the middle of our first picture ...

.... but we were't there. Yes, you can see tents, but they weren't ours. We had been beaten to the camping ground by another trekking group and while there could have been room for us all, if they had pitched their camp sensibly, and thoughtfully, they didn't, and placed their dining tent in the middle of our half, effectively shutting our group out.

Our crew decided that these were people we didn't want to squish in with, so set up our camp on the grazing slopes the other side of the track. It was fine, and mini terraces meant we weren't going to slide down the hill during the night. The only downside was that we did have to navigate round a fair bit of animal spoor every time we stepped outside the tent.

Our picture was taken from the entrance to our tent, so we had pole position for getting to the dining tent in front of us, but the furthest walk to the toilet tents.

We did some great people watching from our tent entrance, and we're referring to observing the antics of the other trekking group. It was clearly luxury trekking for the rich and pampered. We watched cafetieres of coffee being taken round the tents, with aperitifs served from a silver salver a bit later. They also had shower tents with mirrors set up on easels outside and when they sat down to dine (we've no idea what delicacies they were served) they had directors chairs rather than camp stools.

We had none of this, but we weren't jealous as we had absolutely everything we needed and we were being extremely well looked after. We were also having a far more authentic camping experience; after all we were away from it all in the mountains, not staying in town in a posh hotel.

What's more, first impressions of the members of the group weren't good; they were very loud and to put it simply, a bunch of hoorays. We were especially unimpressed when they played loud music after 10.00 p.m. when we were trying to sleep. Believe us 10.00 p.m. is very late on a holiday like this and even the military post alongside us had switched off their generators and turned out their lights.

But we had the last laugh ... during the night our crew opened the gate to the camping ground and sent our ponies in to cause a bit of disruption, and they did this not once, but twice.

Serves them right we say.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie and Gio xxx

Weather Extremes

Remember our last post and how sunny it was and how blue the sky? Well it lasted a bit longer - and much of that period we were relaxing in a lodge enjoying tea and biscuits while our passports and permits were checked at a military checkpoint, then we had a cloudburst. Just before the heavens opened, we took this picture ...

... which showed the path we'd come down into the valley bottom (where the checkpoint was) only to climb up and out the other side. You can see the cloud coming in that brought the rain. We shouldn't have been ill prepared, but we were. It wasn't a problem for us, with our all weather fur, but our minders were soaked before they'd got full waterproofs on.

Fortunately, within a mile, we'd reached our lunch stop and it was an indoor one. Our group, plus another trekking party, crammed into a small tea house. We were all rather cold from our wet clothes but fortunately hot soup, chapattis and vegetable dishes were served to help warm us up.

It took about 2 hours for the rain to stop. It had got to the stage where we were going to have to leave anyway, when the skies brightened and the rain eased off. We had about an hour and a half's walk to our camp and it was a lovely walk. About 30 minutes from the camp we were met by one of the cook boys who had come to meet us with a big kettle of hot orange juice.

Just 5 minutes from our camp was this beautiful lake with prayer flags and a small stupa. This was Kala Pokhari, literally black lake. It was simply beautiful in the afternoon sun. We admired it from all sides. Gio's picture shows the black lake aspect, while we looked back alone the path we'd come and it looked very different.   

While this was a tranquil spot we had campsite wars ahead of us. Find out more next time.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie and Gio xxx

Reminders of Home

Sorry readers, we forgot to blog ... but we're back now!

Back in India ... we didn't go to bed, however, without viewing the marvellous sunset (o.k. that was at tea-time) and saying goodnight to our mule friends.

Strangely enough we also said good morning to the mules when we went to breakfast the next day. They were ready with their saddles on long before us. As you can see in our picture it was a lovely sunny morning; it wasn't this warm at 5.15 a.m. though, when we climbed the small rise to the rear of this same picture, for our second 'mountain view'. Kanchenjunga was already creeping noticeably closer.

We were trekking along the old military road built by the British so it was a pretty good path, although quite eroded in places. As a result the only wheeled vehicles that could use it were old British series 1 (possibly 2) Landrovers, older than us, and older even than our minders.

We were trekking along the border between India and Nepal, so we were regularly changing countries. We soon came to our first Nepali village with the indigenous Land Rovers ....

... no sooner were we out of the village and we came across our first local monkeys ...

... we weren't carrying any food though, so they were out of luck.

It was a beautiful day to be out trekking and our minders were busy with their sun tan lotion. We had stops for a military checkpoint and also to enter the Singalila National Park proper. Here we are at the entrance.

It had been an exciting morning and we hadn't even got to lunchtime yet, so there's more to come. 

Lots of love, Gio, George and Yorkie xxx

Our Trek Gets Underway

As we arrived in Dhodrey our Jeeps were unloaded with their contents going two ways: humans and bears, plus daysacks, to a village house for lunch, and yellow Exodus bags to our luggage carrying mule train.

Although it was only 11:30 a.m. packed lunches were produced, prepared by or trek chef Manilal. We were all given a cardboard box and it was exciting to open them up and see what was inside. It was quite a feast: a potato, a hardboiled egg, cheese sandwiches, cake and a chocolate bar. There were also cartons of mango juice which weren't too popular with us, but went down well with the local children.

After lunch we were all raring to go and here some of us are at the starting line ...

... Yorkie was still inside, hoovering up the lunch leftovers and living up to his nickname of the Piranha.

We left the village, admiring some of the mooli crops and crossing the local football pitch before starting an easy ascent through woodland.  We had a fine trekking leader in Kundan who you see in the red jacket. He seemed hardly old enough to have left school but he was very good and looked after us well. Our group leader, Dilip, is crouching down in our picture; he was also an excellent leader and very good company.

It wasn't a hard afternoon's walk and we had plenty of time to enjoy it and the views that started to open up as we climbed. We soon left the trees behind and climbed, on a good path, through scrubby grassland. Our female minder had the claim to fame of being the only member of the group to pick up a leech on her knee. Fortunately it brushed off easily (she later found a second one on her boot, but that was the end of them, as we had climbed too high for for any more leeches).

As we climbed onto a ridge, not any old ridge but the Singalila ridge we were going to follow on our trek, we were almost immediately in the village of Tonglu (3036m) where we were to stay for the night.

Our blue tents were all pitched and ready for us to move in. The cook tent and our dining tent weren't far away.

 
We spent most of the remainder of the day drinking tea and eating, then because it was cold and dark and we'd had lots of fresh air, it was early to bed for us.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie and Gio xxx

Heritage on Wheels

We were awake and ready to leap out of bed when we heard the call of 'Mountain View' at 5.15 a.m. Being bears we don't have to dress, so we were up on the hotel's sun terrace before our minders, drinking in our first view of Kanchenjunga.

It was very exciting especially as the view changed every few minutes, as it got lighter and the sun moved round the horizon, painting the mountains pink. It wasn't worth going back to bed afterwards, as we had to pack before an earlyish breakfast, so we could leave at 7.30 to walk down to the station,  where we would catch the toy train of the Darjeeling Mountain Railway.

The railway was completed in 1881 and built to exploit the difference in the price of potatoes between Darjeeling and Silguri. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was built with a narrow gauge of just 2 foot to allow it to follow a tightly twisting route through the hills. The raised track now runs along the edge of the only road into Darjeeling, which is very narrow and very busy, making for a fun journey as you mix it with all the traffic.

Four diesel locos handle most of the scheduled services, but there are still some British built steam engines which take tourists along a 10 km stretch of the railway between Darjeeling and Ghum.

We were lucky to be able to travel on a train pulled by one of the characterful blue steam engines - Blue Bear would have loved it, especially the fact that the engines are blue like him. It was a slow journey at a speed of no more than 12km an hour, with numerous stops for cars parked on the line which had to be moved, and similar.

We had one official stop for about 10 minutes at the Batista loop where there are beautiful gardens and a memorial to Gurkha soldiers of the Indian Army. Close by stands a sculpture of one of the soldiers, appearing behind me in my photo ...

At Ghum station we left the train and our jeeps were there waiting for us. We climbed aboard and set off for the village of Dhodrey, the starting point of our trek. How exciting!

Lots of love

George, Yorkie and Gio xxx

To the Queen of the Hills

The next day, day 1 proper of the holiday, involved some more travelling. We had a civilised, post breakfast, departure from our hotel, for Delhi airport's domestic terminal, then a relaxing flight up to Bagdogra airport. This serves as a military airport so no photos were allowed ... we'll therefore move swiftly on to our journey from the airport up to Darjeeling.

We travelled in jeeps as we had a big climb into the hills to do, on poor quality roads. The first few miles were on smooth wide tarmac, as you can see from our picture below ...

... so we bowled along, keeping an eye out for elephants crossing. We saw the warning signs, but not the elephants. We suppose that was better than hitting, or being hit by, one.

As we started to climb into those cool green hills that so attracted the British colonials, it started to get cooler and our pace slowed due to lots of hairpins and a narrowing of the road. We stopped for a break at a restaurant with a view at Kurseong, and tucked into a few shared plates of delicious momos (steamed dumplings for those who haven't tried them).

It was dark by the time we arrived at Darjeeling. Our hotel, the Himalayan Resort, was quite new but had bags of lovely character. How's this for a fine room ...

... don't worry, we haven't suddenly joined a convent, we're wearing the Buddhist prayer scarf we were presented with, on arrival, along with a cup of tea (Darjeeling, what else?)

The corridor outside our room was equally splendid with lots of beautiful wood panelling ...

... can you see us relaxing on the settee?

As we had arrived in the early evening, we didn't get much further than a local restaurant a 10 minutes stroll away. We also had an interesting briefing telling us what we would be doing the next day. We were getting very excited as we had the start of our trek to look forward to, as well as a ride on Darjeeling's famous toy train.

We found a picture of the toy train outside our room. We sat in the plant below gazing up at it and anticipating the delight of the next day.

We didn't stay up too late though as we were due to have a wake up call the next morning, at just after 5.00 a.m., for our first 'mountain view'.

We'll share this first view with you next time.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie and Gio xxx

1.2 Billion People ... and 3 Bears

We can talk more about caravanning any time, and we will, but we need to pause to bring you news of our latest big adventure.

Being a caravan owner has, in no way, diminished our sense of adventure and wanderlust; it just provides us with opportunities for more lovely holidays. As we stayed in Europe last year, this year we felt we were due a more exotic holiday, so off we went to one of our favourite countries ...

... the huge flag, which was flying in Connaught Place, will hopefully tell you that we've been to India. It was Gio's first trip, Yorkie's second and my third (George speaking). I'm beginning to feel quite a veteran. 

We flew into Delhi at breakfast time. We might have arrived early in the day but it was already very hot. Fortunately we had rooms ready for us in the lovely air conditioned oasis that the Florence Inn is. 

It didn't take us long to recover from our overnight flight and to want to go out and brave the 'feels like 44 degrees' heat to explore. We couldn't afford to waste any time as we were leaving Delhi the next day. 

You could be forgiven if you think we were in London, when you see our next photo ... 

... as it does look like I'm travelling on the underground. I was however, on the rather more modern Delhi metro which travels on stilts, overground, rather than underground. It was very easy to use, clean, cool, cheap and not too crowded. Perhaps the fact it was a Sunday helped. 

The most sensible thing to do would have been to stay on the metro all day, but being curious bears we surfaced at Connaught Place. This is where we saw the huge Indian flag flying. We knew it was big and have just found out it is 60 feet wide and 90 feet long, and it flies at the top of a 207 foot mast in Central Park. That's big! 

We strolled round Central Park, took in the Lutyen's architecture and marvelled at the fact that we were looking at the fourth most expensive office accommodation in the world. We preferred the official name of Rajiv Chowk as it sounds a lot more Indian. 

We gathered that Delhi doesn't get too many bear tourists as everyone wanted to talk to us and find out where we were from. It quickly became a bit much for us in the heat so we returned to our hotel for a bear nap and to prepare ourselves for the start of the holiday proper the next day. 

Lots of love, George, Yorkie and Gio xxx

Meet Our Friend Piggy

The great thing about Wild Slack Farm is that is a working farm as well as being a caravan and camping site. We thoroughly approved of this and wasted no time in making new friends. 

It took just a few steps to encounter the farm residents. Both the ducks and chickens had fairly young offspring with them and they were predictably cute ...

... but the real star of the show and our definite favourite, was Piggy, who you meet below ...

Who wouldn't fall in love with such a gorgeous pig? and she wasn't just gorgeous, she had a lovely friendly temperament as well. There was a sign in the toilet block encouraging us to feed Piggy our food leftovers, including fruit, veg and cake, and the fact that we frequently appeared with food offerings, quickly established a strong rapport between us and our porcine friend. Wherever she was in the field, as soon as we appeared, she would come running over to see us. As a result she got rather more than leftovers (we just couldn't let her down!) She enjoyed a taste of Aunty G's fruit cake and we even went carrot shopping for her. 

Towards the end of the week, Farmer Martin, told us Piggy was going to be joined, out in the field, by her sister and mother. We viewed this imminent event with rose tinted spectacles and thought it would be lovely for Piggy to have company of her own kind. 

However, on returning to the site that afternoon, we found Mum, and sister, but no Piggy. At first we thought she might have gone off to make b****n and we were quite worried for her. When we met Farmer Martin, he told us a sad tale. Piggy had been attacked by her relatives and he'd had to move her indoors for her safety.  

He told us where to find Piggy, so we went straight to visit with some treats (it's a radish in our picture). It was sad to see Piggy behind bars, after being used to seeing her outdoors, but at least the front barrier was low, and her barn was open to the elements so she could see out. She did seem rather dispirited though, and it was far from the happy re-union we had hoped for.

It's certainly true what they say, that nature is red in tooth and claw. We just can't understand why everyone can't live in harmony, just like us bears.

Lots of love, Chelmer and the B.U. caravanning gang xxx

Ribs Travels to God's Own Country

As we said last time, we're working backwards, so you had our most recent caravan adventure first. Our trip before that wasn't too long ago though, so it's still fresh in our memories.

We indulged Yorkshire bear/reindeer, Yorkie and Randolph, with a visit to that fine county of Yorkshire. While some of us were being patriotic in this choice, others were being more practical. We chose Yorkshire's east coast as we couldn't set off from Norfolk until well after lunch on the Sunday of our departure, so we needed a destination we could reach in a long afternoon's driving. Yorkshire was also somewhere we positively wanted to go to.

While it wasn't supposed to be that far, it wasn't that close either, so we didn't arrive until nearly 8.30 p.m. This was partly because we encountered some rather steep hills as we got closer to journey's end.  It didn't make for easy towing, but it made us happy, as we love upland scenery.

On arrival we instantly fell in love with Wild Slack Farm. It has a simply fabulous location, just outside Lealholm, on the edge of the North York Moors.

And, the icing on the cake is that farmer Martin, and his wife Andrea, are lovely, helpful people and gave a warm welcome. We couldn't believe our luck in choosing such a wonderful spot, and as it was a lovely mild evening, we set to, and got the awning up, before a very late supper. Many paws made light work.

The next morning we took in our surroundings properly and started plan our week.

Being on the edge of the moors, we knew we'd want to explore them on foot, but we also wanted to get to the coast, as Whitby and Robin Hoods Bay were not far away. We were also in the heart of horse racing country,  a fact that keen racing bears, Patrick and Curly wouldn't allow us to overlook! 

Look to the back right of our next photo and you'll see the farm buildings on the right, with the site to the left of them, and you'll appreciate what a quiet and relaxing spot we had found.  

And to cap it all there was a good pub just a mile away, which we could easily walk to.

Find out how we spent our week, next time and who we met.

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Ribs Takes in the Midlands

Well how can we follow that one? Well done Suffolk Branch!

We'll follow it with something calm and relaxing; a report of a caravanning holiday. As we're just back from a very successful trip, we'll start with our most recent trip first and work backwards.

Our latest adventure started with our annual trip to the Greenbelt Arts Festival - not at Cheltenham race course this year, but at a new venue of Boughton House, just outside Kettering. We enjoyed the varied programme, although missed a decent headline act on MainStage, and we were surrounded by beautiful grounds and countryside. When it rained all day and night on Monday, we did discover the downside of the new venue; a lack of indoor facilities and permanent infrastructure.

When we left Kettering, we headed for Stratford on Avon to indulge our passion for horse racing. We'd discovered that there was jump racing at Worcester on the Wednesday and jump racing at Stratford on the Thursday. This was just perfect for us. We decided to base ourselves for a couple of days at Stratford, as rather conveniently there is a caravan site at the race course.

We got a great pitch right beside the course and we were right beside the first jump and hurdle which gave us some great spectator sport when the groundsmen came to get the jumps ready for racing. As you can see the sun was shining and the site was nice and quiet, so we were happy as Larry.

We hadn't been there long when a man came and roped us in, although we were left a car sized exit hole. This was because the disabled car park was being marked out and we were located right in the middle of it.

As Stratford is famous for it's waterways, we spent some of our time between race meetings, walking both the River Avon and the Stratford Canal. We'd been on both previously in a canal boat and recommend both as they are very attractive stretches of water.

When it came to Stratford race day itself, we had to move the Bearmobile and Ribs to the centre of the racecourse, so the disabled car park could be used.

We were the only caravan that moved, so we had the centre of the course to ourselves ....

... that was until a helicopter flew in and landed just the other side of the fence to us. We don't often get such a close up look at these amazing machines, so it was quite fascinating, if rather noisy.

We're used to Ribs turning quite a few heads and getting some admiring looks, as she's quite a characterful caravan, but this was a first ...

... as the horses went round the parade ring, they quickly spotted her with her roof sticking up like a periscope and there were quite few ears pricked up in interest. You can hardly blame them.

We think Ribs enjoyed her day at the races as much as us.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie, Patrick, Curly, Gio, Bris and Olaf xxxxxxx

Suffolk Branch ALS / Motor Neurone Disease Charity Ice Bucket Challenge

Suffolk Branch took advantage of a sunny day and now throw down the gauntlet to Norfolk and Midlands Branch members to get chilly for charity!  Admittedly we plastic members have a quick dry advantage so furries, you can wear your waterproofs!  Have fun!

https://www.justgiving.com/mndassoc/

Edit: for some reason the video doesn't show up on an iPad / iPhone, so click this link to view on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvKwa6LYrwg&feature=youtu.be

Nautical News

We'll be back with more caravanning news soon, but first a boating update.

Do you remember Miri, our Mirror dinghy moving on to her new home recently? Well we've had another departure since then; our Canadian canoe has also found a new home.

I gave her a good clean and a lot of t.l.c before she left. The nice thing is that we remain in touch with her new owners so I hear lots about her exciting new life, and all the fun she is having - it's very heartening.

You could be forgiven for thinking that, with 2 boat departures, we'd gone off boating. Far from it; it's our free time that we're short of, not enthusiasm for boats. We're also planning on being a bit more selective and lightweight. We've already bought an inflatable double kayak to take with us on holidays and we're hoping to buy a 'sit on' canoe soon.

Of course we also have our Wayfarer dinghy, Skylark, to keep us busy. We'd planned to take her out on Friday morning but when we got to Morston quay we found ...

... water absolutely everywhere - talk about a very high tide. In our picture you see what wold normally be car park covered with water and the usual jetties (by the posts) for getting to boats, especially seal trip boats, unreachable unless you were prepared to roll up your trousers and wade.

The big high tide wouldn't have stopped us going out, and it would have allowed a longer outing than usual. However the really strong wind, pushing the tide in, was the problem. To get out into Blakeney pit would have had to fight wind and tide.

I was game for an adventurous sail, but my crew were nervous and my golden rule is to put my crew first. We watched some other people trying to sail and it was good spectator sport. Each boat we watched hot into difficulties and had to give up and return before getting very far. We knew then that staying ashore had been the right decision.

We decided to take a walk along the coast path to Blakeney to see how it was faring with the high tide. As you can see, the usually fairly narrow creek was rather wide and more of a lake. The footpath along the quay was under water as was half of the road in front of the Blakeney Hotel. The poor old fun fair was suffering the worst though. It had located on the car park and the whole of the car park was covered in water. You can see the dodgems, not quite floating, but definitely not going anywhere.

Paws crossed for some calmer weather soon.

Lots of love, Eddie and all at Bears Unlimited xxx

The Freedom of the Road

Did you know that bears like to sing? If you pass below the window of our bear cave nowadays, the song you're most likely to hear us singing has a chorus that goes ...

Caravans, oh my soul is on the run
Overland, I am flying
Caravans moving out into the sun
Oh I don't know where I'm going
But I'm going.

We realise that this song probably dates just a little; it came out in 1980 and is Barabara Dicksons's Caravan song. But why are we singing it? It's because we're now caravanning bears and very happy to be so (sorry Jeremy Clarkson but we don't care what you think).

Our new found affection for caravans dates from the end of last year when a much loved family friend came to live with us. This was Ribby (Ribs for short) and Ribs is a fine specimen of a rather special and unique make of caravan, the Eriba.

Talk about Gallic charm, who could not fall for such fine looks and what an icon of the caravan world she is.

Ribs had been living with our female minder's minders for the last 18 years and given them many fantastic holidays. Our female minder recalls several happy holidays spent in Ribby during her student days before meeting our Dad.

Ribs came to live with us after Uncle G had a big birthday an decided he was a bit too old now for towing. He was sorry to see her leave, but is pleased she is staying in the family and he and Aunty G will still be able to use her, especially on holidays in Norfolk.

Their (partial) loss is very much our gain and having already had 2 great holidays, we are planning lots more. Although she is small, Ribs has a smart awning which almost doubles her size as you can see from our next picture.

This is great news for a household of bears the size of the Norfolk Branch, as it means we don't have to taken it in turns as much to go on holiday; lots of us can go at the same time, which simply isn't possible on suitcase holidays. 

We'll start telling you where we've been next time.

Lots of love, all at the Norfolk Branch xxx 

Remembering: 100 Years On

In common with many people across the country, we have remembered the outbreak of the First World War, 100 years ago today.

We gathered at our village church for Choral Evensong which concluded with an Act of Remembrance.

The names of all 72 men commemorated on the war memorials of the 4 villages of our Parish were read out, then members of the congregation lit 72 candles, one for each man, and placed them in the shape of a cross in the chancel.

Here I am with the list of names which made poignant reading.

The service took place this evening and the candles should burn for around 3 hours. This means they will burn out at around 11.00 p.m. the very time that war was declared.

I was pleased to discover, however, that there will still be light; a 7 day candle will take up the role of symbolically shining in the darkness and, the amazing thing is, that the 7 day candle will be replaced every week for the next 4 years, until the anniversary of the end of the war comes round.

The 7 day candle is on my left in the next picture.

It will look amazing as darkness falls and I'm very moved by the fact that there will be constant candlelight for 4 years. 

It's important to remember: both the lives of the fallen and the fact that the light of God will never be extinguished. 

Love Gio and all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Pottering in Portugal

Greeting readers, we hope you didn't think the blog had ended as it hasn't - hopefully that's good news for you. We've simply been incredibly busy having fun, travelling (of course) and running the Bears Unlimited business, so we decided to have a bit of a sabbatical from the blog.

Keep checking the site though as we'll try and write often enough to keep you interested and make it worth your while checking for new posts.

We've clearly got a bit of catching up to do, so where do we start? Perhaps the New Year would be a good place. While Blighty was wet and windy, albeit not that cold, we jetted off to the Algarve, arriving on 2nd January (we couldn't arrive any sooner as there was a race meeting at Fakenham on New Years Day which we couldn't possibly miss!)

As you can see from our first photo, you don't have to travel far to find sunshine and blue skies in early January.

The rocky Algarve coast with its cliffs and sandy beaches was a real joy and we were out and about exploring and researching material for the Friendly Planet guide, almost as soon as we arrived. In the evenings we swam in the covered pool at our apartments, watched DVDs from the library, played pool in the Holiday Property Bond clubhouse and tried one or two of the local wines. It was heavenly and a great way to banish the January blues.  

We were out and about every day, and made good use of our Cicerone walking guide. We were particularly fascinated by the cork trees which we encountered on several walks, as we'd never seen them before.

As you can see, only a section of cork gets harvested at a time and the harvesting is a very organised process. The number on the tree indicated the year of the last harvest (in our picture 2008) and 10 years will be left between harvests, to allow the cork to grow back even better than before. We shall always look at cork in a different light now.

Towards the end of the week we went over to the west coast and here there were some simply huge seas. Sorry, we had to use humans to provide some scale, but us travelling bears, are just too small in relation to swells of this size.

We'd like to say that we were out there surfing, but it would be a lie. Perhaps if we'd had action bear Chelmer, with us, he'd have been tempted, and might have encouraged us, but we decided our duty was to keep our minders company ... honest!

Cape St Vincent was definitely worth a visit. It's the most southwesterly point in Portugal and it has a big lighthouse ...

... and it's a great place to sit and watch the sun go down. As it was getting cold outside we sat on the dashboard of our Corsa hire car. We like Corsas as we have one at home.

We hope you've enjoyed our Portuguese highlights and will join us again sson.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie, Rocco, Rosa and Douglas xxx

Meerkovo to Suffolk

Greetings Norfolk and Midlands Branch.  My name is Sergei and I'm from Meerkovo, a small village just outside Moscow.  I was head of the principal design group of the Mir(kat) Space Program but heard that one of my new Minders needed some help keeping up with Bears Unlimited computermabob demands, especially when the servermabob goes down and it's all paws to the keyboard, so I headed for pastures new in Suffolk and have been settling in after my long journey.  I felt very at home when I 1st laid eyes on all the computermabobs at home and at my Minder's work and I look forward to meeting you all soon.  Simples!

Miri Moves On

Boating Bear Eddie here to report on a very important responsibility I, and able sea bear Louis, had today. We had to prepare our much loved Mirror dinghy Miri to go to her new owners and home on the Norfolk coast, not a million miles from our Bear Cave.

We hadn't used her for a number of years, as my minders had found her a bit small, and she'd been succeeded first by Tarka (who was, no prizes for guessing, an Otter dinghy) and then by Skylark, the Wayfarer we're currently using. We'd been looking after Miri, as she was safely stored in a garage, so warm and dry, but it wasn't really fair on her to keep her away from her natural watery environment for so long.

About a month ago we decided we should try and find her a new home, so we got her rigged and took lots of photos for an advert. I recommended that we put our advert on Apollo Duck as this is a great website for buyer and sellers of boats to meet.

Even though she is a very old boat, we all thought she looked great in the photos we took, and we hoped there would be at least one person wanting to give her the good home she deserved.

We were in luck; the same day the advert was published we had a call from someone who had a holiday home near Brancaster. He was learning to sail along with his two sons and felt that a Mirror would be the right boat for them. We couldn't agree more, and a deal was done.

Today was the appointed day for taking Miri over to join her new owners, as we'd got a towing hitch and they hadn't. I got up early to give Miri a final check and a pep talk, then directed the Bearmobile back to hitch up up.

It was a poignant moment when she came out the drive for the last time, but once we got to Brancaster and she met her new owners, who were very excited by her arrival, I felt a lot better and knew Miri was about to get a new lease of life and be kept very busy.

If you're a boat, being in the water is what it's all about, so we left her in Brancaster with a big smiles on our faces.

Lots of love, Eddie, Louis and all at Bears Unlimited xxx