Meet Horatio

In recent years, various towns and cities throughout the U.K. have been visited by groups of animals that you wouldn't normally expect to find there. We found the streets of Manchester occupied by colourful cows when we visited on one of our canal boat trips; more recently Norwich was visited by a herd of elephants and, very recently, hippos invaded the small Norfolk town of North Walsham.

The hippos arrived completely naked, and white with cold - after all North Norfolk isn't quite as warm as their native Africa. They were found wandering the streets looking rather lost. Various organisations around North Walsham took them in and gave them a temporary home. The housing association where one of our minders works took one in and here he is ...


Being friendly bears, and animal lovers, Curly and I wasted no time in popping over to say hello. As you can see, he didn't look quite right in white and was desperately in need of a coat. While it took the staff at Victory Housing Trust a while to think about what sort of a coat they should give him, they wasted no time in deciding on a name. Horatio was the obvious choice given North Norfolk's links with Nelson and his home at Victory Housing.

We'll tell you how Horatio got his coat and what happened to his friends, in the next couple of posts.

See you soon

Lots of love, Chelmer & Curly xxx

After the Storm

We were rather worried at the end of last week, as we watched and waited, to see what harm the predicted tidal surge would do to the lovely area of North Norfolk coastline, just a few miles from where we live.

Fortunately 'the worst' didn't happen and homes and villages were spared. There was, however, quite a lot of flooding of the land immediately behind the sea wall. We went for a coastal walk on Sunday afternoon to see the aftermath of the storm surge.


As we walked along the coast path beside the Blakeney channel, we came across several small boats which had slipped their moorings or escaped from the dinghy park. They had ended up much closer to the footpath than to the sea. We felt rather sorry for them as they looked rather forlorn, and we hope their owners will come and rescue them soon.

While the high water levels had retreated at Blakeney, just a couple of miles away at Salthouse, the flood water was still lying on the flat land, on which we usually see cattle grazing. It all looked a bit different on Sunday. As we viewed the scene from the road we found we were looking at an inland lake.


The birds certainly liked it, they were having a whale of a time swimming round on this newly created lake. Talk about unsettled weather though. In the few minutes we stood looking at the changed landscape, grey clouds rolled in and it went very dark.


Who would have believed that our last 2 pictures were taken only a couple of minutes apart. At least we didn't get wet though, as Bearmobile 1 was thankfully only a few steps away.

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Dilly Behind Bars

There are an awful lot of good dog walks which start right from our house. However, when time allows, we always enjoy heading off to the coast or one of the local estates, for a really long walk. There is nothing like a bit of sea breeze for really blowing the cobwebs away.

The only problem is that we have to hitch a ride in a Bearmobile to get to these more distant places. Bearmobile 1, being an estate car is dog friendly. We have plenty of room to move around in the estate area and 360 degree views of the roads we are travelling along.

It does mean we have to sit behind a dog guard though. Dilly wasn't used to this as she normally travels in the passenger footwell of her owner's car.


The first time she travelled with us and found herself behind bars she thought she was in prison. As you can imagine she wasn't too happy until we explained to her it was all about her safety and she hadn't done anything wrong.

When we arrived at our favourite walking spots and she saw where we were taking her she soon agreed it was all worthile and she soon got used to the prison van travelling.

It was great to have the extra company and 3 noses are much better than 2 when it comes to sniffing out some wonderful smells, such as odour of dead rat, that we dogs find particularly fascinating.


We found the woods in the grounds of Blickling Hall were particularly good for canine games. We played tag and hide and seek and lots of the old favourites. We think we might have annoyed our minders a bit as they just wanted to get on with the walk.

Lots of love Black Doggy, Jock & Dilly xxx

Friends to Stay

One of the things we like about living in North Norfolk is that we get a lot of visitors over the summer as it is such a lovely place to visit and a popular holiday spot.

Chelmer had a whale of a time when his cousin Spike and a number of friends came to stay. They managed to pick one of the sunny spells so were out and about all the time doing lots of daring outdoor things, especially tree climbing.


It's a good job they're confident and sure footed as they did reach some lofty heights.

The most exciting time of all though was had by Marmaduke, who you may recall is one of the latest arrivals at the Norfolk Branch. Marmaduke was rescued from a Christmas fayre stall after we took one look at him and realised that he was so much the spitting image of a couple of the Suffolk branch members that he must surely be related. A hasty phone call to the Suffolk branch established that Marmaduke was the long lost brother of Bailey and cousin of Smiley.

Although they talked regularly on the phone, it took a while to arrange the long awaited reunion. The anticipation made it all the more exciting for them when they did finally meet.


The happy reunion brought tears to the eyes of the rest of us. The talking, toasting and scrutiny of the photo albums went on late into the night.

We do love a happy ending!

Lots of love, all at the Norfolk Branch xxx