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