Something New from B.U.

We would like to start this first post of 2011 wishing all our readers a very Happy New Year.  

Over the Christmas period, we had our usual Christmas meet up with both the Midlands and Suffolk Branches, and a fun time was had by all, with much Wherry and Sundew beer being consumed, along with a feast of food, supplied by Oakley our resident chef bear.

Once the feasting and catching up had taken place, as is our custom, we held the Bears Unlimited Annual General Meeting. Polar from the Midlands Branch suggested we should make more use of our Sister Blog  Bears Unlimited Biographies.  This was set up by me (Jimmy) a couple of years ago to test new features for this blog, such as our Cluster Map.  It was also set up to give our readers more of an in depth knowledge of the members of the various branches.   While Polar had been on his extended stay with the Norfolk Branch,  (reported on in October "Forgotten???") he had taken the chance to tell us all about himself.

 

Polar had enjoyed the experience so much he thought all of us should write our biographies.  This idea was enthusiastically supported by everyone, so we decided to make a new years resolution that we would post one new biography every month. We will start this month, with another member of the Midlands Branch, so keep you eyes pealed to see just who!

We then decided that we should put into action a project that has been on the back burner for a while.  As we travel across the country we often come across Trig Points set up by the Ordnance Survey, and we like to have our photograph taken sitting on top of them.  Why not then, set up a new blog with photos of us, or indeed any other Bear or soft furry, sitting on the Trig Point with a few details of where we are.  Bris, who as our readers know has a thing about churches, suggested that we should extend the scope of the blog to Ordnance Survey bench marks, as he had seen many carved on churches. 

We all thought this was a great idea, so I, along with our other top teckie Fred from the Suffolk Branch, set about making the plan a reality by creating our new blog. 

  

Our new blog is called Bears on Trig Points and can be found at http://www.bearsontrigpoints.blogspot.com/ 

Since this second of our New Years's resolutions was made, travelling bears George and Yorkie, accompanied by Rocco, have already bagged their first pair of Trig Points in Derbyshire. They will be posting on these two trig points shortly, along with another which is virtually in the Norfolk Branch's own back yard.   We then plan to trawl through the BU photo archive to add as many bear adorned trig points photos as we can find.

We hope lots of our readers will join in with this project and persuade their minders to snap them on top of their local trig points and then send the photo into us with a note of who you are and where you are. We want to get as much of the country covered as we can, as a tribute to these fine features of the British way of life.

Please see the new blog for details of how to join in.

Love Jimmy, Fred and all at BU xxx

Happy Mothering Sunday

A very happy Mothering Sunday to all mothers everywhere, but especially to those associated with our extended family. Lots of virtual hugs and kisses to each of you.

We remembered our Mum today and did her proud with a card, flowers and chocolates (Maltesers, her favourite, no less) as you can see in our picture. She was very pleased with us all.


If you look closely, you will also see Bris and Gio with a delightful posy of flowers that they were about to hand over to our Mum. This posy came from one of our churches and was lovingly made, along with lots more, by one of our young 80+ year olds, who is an inspiration to us all. It had a lovely red and yellow tulip, some daffodil buds and some greenery.

We all enjoyed the Mothering Sunday service and, in the talk, we had fun playing true or false with some of the facts about mothers. Can you believe that it is true that one lady had 69 children! It was just a shame that families were not together in the pews this year. Hopefully they would have been meeting up later.

Lots of love, Ungi, Jimmy & all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Have You Discovered Wasgij?

It's been simply great to see sunshine and blue skies this week, but we understand it's all due to come to an end tomorrow. Still, at least we've recently discovered a great way to spend a wet and cold afternoon. In other words we've discovered Wasgij puzzles.

It all started when Jimmy & Noel received their jigsaw mat for Christmas - remember January's post telling you all about their lovely gift? Well a very nice lady in our village, heard that there were some puzzle enthusiasts about, and leant us a rather special puzzle, which we'd never heard of before. This was the wasgij puzzle we mentioned earlier.

Either you'll know all about Wasgij puzzles or you'll think we're talking double Dutch. To cater for the latter grouping, we'll explain.

With a wasjij puzzle the image you see on the box lid only provides the clues to the puzzle image. The box image shows the reaction of the onlookers to the main event which is the image, which you, the puzzler, have to build, but cannot see. You have to look carefully at the picture of the onlookers to obtain vital clues as to what is going on in the puzzle.


Here is the 1000 piece puzzle we completed in just over 2 days. We do admit to working after midnight on 2 consecutive nights, which shows just how addictive these puzzles are. We won't tell you what the picture on the box looked like for us, so as not to ruin the fun, should you come across the same puzzle as we did.

The reason it is so addictive, is because you have no idea what you are building, until you start putting similar pieces together and see what is obtained as a result. Once you are under way impatience kicks in and you are desparate to know what will be on your picture.

We are going to have to ration ourselves as to how many we buy or borrow, otherwise we won't get any jobs done. We do have the promise of another puzzle from our kind lady friend though, and will very happy when it arrives.

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx

What to Buy a Bear: Part 3

Two other members of the Norfolk branch aren't bothered about spending more time at home than usual during this cold snap. These guys are Jimmy and Noel, and the reason they are happy to be at home is all down to one the Christmas presents they received.

Here they are with their present of a jigsaw roll.


What you won't have known until now, is that bears are great puzzlers, and Jimmy and Noel are especially enthusiastic. Up until now, their puzzling has been curtailed by the need to keep the bear cave tidy and the complaints received when half done puzzles get under paw. There are, after all, a lot of bears living in a finite space in Norfolk, and, while they wouldn't have it any other way, it does mean anything not being used has to be put away.

The new jigsaw roll means that at the end of a puzzling session, Jimmy & Noel can now simply roll up their puzzle and tidy it out the way of all those paws. They are very happy as they will be able to have a puzzle permanently on the go.

Jimmy & Noel have decided to start with a lovely Lake District scene. This is the Ashness Bridge puzzle you can see in the picture. Other bears are keen to lend a paw, although Ungi has been told that they would prefer it if he entertained with his guitar playing, rather than helping with the puzzle.

Hope you are keeping warm and upright (when outside!)

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited

Real Life Drama on the Box

When Bears Unlimited was first formed, we had branches in Suffolk, the Midlands and Hertfordshire. However, due to office relocations and transfer of personnel, the branch in Hertfordshire, slowly shrunk in size until the last member, TBB (Teddy Bear Bill), feeling lonely, decided to move on a semi-permanant basis to join new friends and former Hertfordshire Branch members at the Norfolk Branch. However, whenever he can, he still likes to pop back to visit his minders or invites them to come up to Norfolk to see him.

Recently one of his minders became a V.I.P. in hospital in Luton. As TBB had a bad cold which he didn't want to pass on, he asked me, Jimmy, being an ex Herts member, along with Noël and Chelmer, to head off to Luton to do some hospital visiting. As is the Bears Unlimited way, as well as cheering up our sick relative, we needed to undertake some essential quality control work. I asked Chelmer to lead, building on the experience he gained back in October last year visiting a Midland branch V.I.P.

Noel and I both have some expertise in electrical equipment so decided that the all important heart machines should be given a full check. Firstly we checked we could get a good trace from a healthy heart, then we decided take a full ECG, again this test proved entirely satisfactory. Just as well as we wouldn't settle for anything else!


On checking out the non medical equipment, we discovered that hidden in the television system was a bear sized keyboard connected to the Internet. Noël took command and sent back to all branches news of the sucessful quality control checks and news of our loved one's good progress and excellent care.


With a sucessful mission acomplished we all then headed of to the nearest Pizza Express for a scrumptious Sloppy Guiseppie and some of those lovely dough balls.

Love from me, Jimmy, and my fellow hospital inspectors xxx

Our first posting

Welcome to the Bears Unlimited Blog Spot - we think Blog stands for Bear Log! In our next few postings we will begin to introduce ourselves.

Here you see me (Jimmy) with the sunglasses and Noël my best friend and constant companion enjoying a great British summer.