This Day 9 Years Ago ...

Today is very auspicious day in the Bears Unlimited calendar. Anyone know why? It's 9 years to the day since our first ever post on the Bears Unlimited blog.

It was all inspired by our friend Naughty Bear who we met at the Greenbelt Arts Festival.

We'd never heard of blogging until he introduced us to his and patiently explained how it all worked. We decided that if Bear could do such a great job all on his own, with so many of us in Bears Unlimited, we should be able able to come up with something half decent.

We hope we haven't disappointed, even though we having been having a bit of a break recently. Once those autumn nights starting drawing in, we'll have a bit more time on our paws, and we hope to stage a comeback.

Representatives from all 3 B.U. branches have been getting together to celebrate and to plan for our 10th year.

If there are any special requests for an item on the blog do let us know.

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Post Wedding R & R

We were impressed by how hard the Suffolk Branch had worked assisting with, and reporting on, last week's Royal wedding. What a day it was, and it made us proud to think that Bears Unlimited had played such an important part.

We thought that a good way for the Suffolk Branch to have a complete and well-earned break, would be to invite them up to Norfolk for the rest of Bank Holiday weekend. This we did, And while we were at it, we decided to invite the Midlands Branch as well, as we hadn't seen either branch for far too long.

The Midlands branch were first to arrive and to welcome them we flew both the bear flag, and, a new addition to our flag locker, Warwickshire's flag featuring the famous Bear and Staff. This is the red and yellow flag flying well in our next picture.

It is a flag with special significance for a large number of our members, as a large part of both Suffolk and Norfolk branches originate from Warwickshire.

In the evening of Royal Wedding day, while the Suffolk branch were still coming off duty, several of us went along to the celebratory lighting of the new beacon in the village of Melton Constable. There was a good crowd and a good atmosphere as we watched some bales of straw blaze fiercely.

By Saturday morning the Suffolk branch had joined us and the latest Bears Unlimited gathering was complete. It was a lovely day so we all headed to the coast for a walk. We headed for Blakeney as George was keen to show off, to his brother Isaiah, the Norfolk branch's latest addition to the B.U.assets register, a sailing boat.

Isaiah was really impressed when George stopped him by a very fine, and large, traditional working boat and demanded a picture. He knew that the Norfolk branch had good sailing skills int the form of Boating Bear, Eddie, but he didn't know the Norfolk branch profits were as good as that!

George then took him to a rather more modest craft and said "I was only joking! It's actually Tarka that's ours".

We all agreed that Tarka is a very fine craft and a much more suitable size for a bear crew. 

Over the rest of the weekend, we enjoyed more fine walks and lots of chatting and eating and drinking. All the ingredients for the best of weekends were present. The highlight of a Sheringham coastal walk was seeing these amazing pebble sculptures on the beach. We loved both the lobster and the crab, and marvelled at all the hours of work that must have gone into their construction. We'd have liked to have seen them being built.

We'll have to pop back from time to time to see how they are standing up wind, tide and, probably most detrimental of  all, the general public.

What a great weekend! We'll be resuming our Spanish postings soon, in case anyones's wondering. 

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Happy New Year

We'd like to wish all our readers a very happy New Year and much happiness, health and fulfilled dreams in 2009.

We are now back home, having enjoyed a lovely couple of days with the Suffolk Branch, who offer great hospitality (as in fact do all the branches). We had great fun spending New Year's Eve trying to master W.I.I. sports, which us Norfolk Branch members had never tried before and had a few problems getting our paws around.

We nearly missed midnight as we were so engrossed in our W.I.I. golf tournament. It was lovely to be playing golf in a warm house, with a glass of fine wine at paw's length - although this might have explained why many of us, normally sporty bears, were over par!


This morning we blew away the cobwebs with a fine New Years Day walk in the lovely Suffolk countryside around Newbourne. It was quite cold but we walked fast and we felt much better for our outing. We are pleased to report that on this occasion Isaiah's head stayed firmly attached. For the benefit of new readers, Isaiah did - literally - lose his head on a post Christmas walk a couple of years ago. We did report the event at the time, and the success of his surgery, which was of such quality, that he has fortunately had no troubles since.

We'll be back to pick up the next instalment of our Nepal trip soon, but first we have our much awaited AGM.

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Getting Even More Festive

It's Christmas Eve, and we're all getting very excited about Christmas, and especially the thought of meeting up with the Midlands and Suffolk Branches tomorrow. We can hardly wait!

Before then though, there's lots to do. Bris is currently helping one of our minders at a crib service and while he's out of the house the rest of us are wrapping up his presents. We quite enjoy present wrapping, apart from sellotape sticking to your fur, but the trouble is, we do so many activities together, that it can be hard to find a time when present recipients are not around to wrap up their presents.

Blue Bear is currently washing the Bearmobiles which have turned the same colour as yesterday's fog after the recent cold snap.

Randolph and Benji have the important job of looking after the Christmas Tree. This year's tree is not as big as the ones we've had in recent years, but what he lacks in size he makes up for in fine looks. We were caught out a week or so ago, when we discovered our usual supplier's stock of suitable trees had dried up this year. We had a hasty drive round the neighbourhood to find another supplier. We did find one, but all the big trees had gone, which is why we've gone a bit smaller this year.


We like our tree to last as long as possible, so Randolph fills up his stand with water from his tummy every day, so tree always has fresh water to drink.

We have received a special new decoration for our tree this year. This was a puffin, sent to us by one of our travelling companions on a holiday to Iceland that we enjoyed a few years ago. We sent so much time looking for puffins on that holiday (unfortunately they'd just flown a week earlier) that we keep up a steady stream of correspondence and gifts on the puffin theme. This is the latest fine offering.


You can see puffin hanging proudly alongside a collection of other decorations from distant lands (kiwi from New Zealand, jaguar from South Africa and Camel from India). Our tree is truly cosmopolitan!

Anyway, we may won't be blogging again before the big day arrives, although we hope to be posting again soon after, so we'd like to wish all our friends and readers a very merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful new year.

Have a lovely time,

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx