Volunteering is Fun

We're still in England, not India, as we wanted to share news of a wonderful volunteering day we had this week.

Regular readers will know us (Chris and Benny) as office bears who help our female minder out in the office. That office is Victory Housing Trust and, full marks to Victory, they recently gave all staff an extra 3 days leave which is to be used for volunteering on projects which benefit the local community.

Through our minder's new job (long story) we became acquainted with Heritage House, a day care centre which does marvellous work with the elderly who they describe as 'the beautiful elderly' (we like that).

When we first visited, builders were finishing work on a fine new conservatory. The Manager (the delightful Mary) needed to furnish the conservatory and get it ready for use and had no-one to help. That's where our minder, a colleague of hers, and us of course and the new volunteering leave came in. We applied for and were granted a volunteering day, so along we went.

This is us outside the new conservatory. As you can see it was a lovely sunny day, and as there was a fair bit of physical work, moving furniture, we had frequent breaks in the sun. Just look at the size of the open doorway! - we're sure all the day care visitors will love the breathe of fresh air they will get. 

Manager Mary had done a lot of clever thinking and thought of a way to mix the ultra modern conservatory with old things that would be familiar to the centre users. We moved in the dresser you can see, and an old dining table and chairs and filled the dresser with lots of memorabilia from the last century which we hoped would make the guests full of nostalgia for their younger years. There was also an old radiogram and we even did a spot of dancing to Barry Manilow. 

We filled the conservatory with brand new chairs which looked great and were very comfortable.

We tested them out and, with the suns rays on us, and the hard work done, it was hard to keep our eye lids open.

Sadly we couldn't make the official opening the following day, but we're sure it will have gone well and the room will be much loved and gets lots of use.

Best wishes to all the lovely people at Heritage House and keep up the good work.

Lots of love, Chris and Benny xxx

Hey Oop Chuck

We decided our readers needed a break from India, and thought we go bang-up-to-date with a report of today's avian activities.

We haven't travelled up north (just incase you were confused by our post title) but we have been looking after a friend's 5 chickens - what fun!

Chicken feeding and egg collecting is the perfect job for me ('nature notes' Chelmer) and my gardening bear friend, Tommy. We wandered over to the home of the girls late morning, and found them eagerly awaiting our arrival. It gave us a warm feeling to have our appearance so enthusiastically greeted.

We got straight down to business topping up the corn bowl and scattering some around, so that those lower down the pecking order got a look in on the grub. (We were sad to see 2 of the 5 girls looked looked very hen pecked round their tail feathers and we just don't understand why all creatures can't live as companionably as all of us Bears Unlimited bears). 

Next came the exciting bit of looking inside for eggs. We were in luck, there were 4 beautiful big eggs today. We gathered them up ready to hand over to chef Oakley.  Thank you girls.

We could get used to looking after the chooks, but sadly, we've only got 1 day of it, as our friends have a rota for chicken feeding, to give several people a chance of some free eggs.

Maybe, one day, we'll get some chooks of our own.

It's dark now, as we write, so we'll say goodnight and sleep tight girls.

Love Tommy and Chelmer xxx

The Hunt for Red Panda

After lunch, the big downhill continued, and for the first hour we all had to be quiet. This was quite hard for us, as we'd just made a new friend in Brian, and we wanted to continue chatting away happily and getting to know him.

However, there was a good reason why we needed to be quiet and it was one which was worth being quiet for. We were descending through bamboo forest which is red panda territory, and there was the possibility that, if we were quiet enough, we might see one.

Now, we really, really wanted to see a red panda as they are one of our favourite animals (after bears and hamsters). We got ourselves organised so we could scan every bit of flora and hopefully miss nothing. Yorkie, being the smallest, looked at ground level ....

.... while I, George, looked into the tree tops, and they were very tall ....

....  while Gio and Brian took a side each and looked at eye level. We couldn't have been more vigilant, but sadly, red panda sightings were not to be that day.

It was lovely jungle-like terrain though and the greenery was amazing; when Gio stood in front of these huge ferns he looked just like an Red Indian brave with a big head-dress ....

By the time we'd caught up with Ratoo in a grassy clearing, we'd left the bamboo forest well and truly behind, and with it our dreams of getting up close and personal with a red panda. Never mind though, our camp site was now in sight just across the valley in the cleared green area behind Gio's head and it wasn't going to take too long to get there, as one of the cook crew had walked across to meet us with a kettle full of hot orange - very refreshing.

The camp site was on the edge of a village. The downside was we were pestered by the local children wanting to peer in our tents and follow us everywhere; on the plus side, we had 2 permanent toilets and a local lady invited us to look round her house and to see her animals and sweetcorn store.

This was her house; it was very clean and nice and she was clearly very house proud.

It was lovely to return to civilisation and to meet the locals.

Lots of love

George, Yorkie and Gio xxx