Nearly Here ...

Time is whizzing past at the Bear Cave and Christmas is almost upon us.  Preparations for the big day
are going well and we are pleased to be playing a small part in the greatest story ever told.

So what's currently happening ... ?

The scene is set at Bethlehem: the shepherds are aware something big is about to happen and are ready and waiting - they're a bit early but we blame the angels for this - they were so excited they couldn't keep the secret. At least the shepherds have remembered to keep their sheep with them and friendships are being forged ... with Gio and Olaf!

The wise men have set off on their journey and it's proving a popular trip as five of them have decided to travel this year ...

... the desert sands definitely bear a strong resemblance to our lounge carpet - how strange?!

And how are the three main players: Mary, Joseph and the donkey?

As you can see they are also on their way, and it is pleasing to see the tradition of hospitality is being maintained ...

... cauliflower pasta bake may not be a Mediterranean speciality, but it is going down well and Mary and Joseph are thinking of making a Master Chef nomination having watched the programme for the first time tonight at their current lodgings.

So all is unfolding as it should and everyone is looking forward to the arrival of the baby Jesus.

We'd like to wish all our friends and readers a very happy and peaceful Christmas and a wonderful year to come.

Lots of love

All at Bears Unlimited xxx

Introducing ...

It's time to catch up on the latest additions to the Norfolk Branch of Bears Unlimited. They didn't all arrive at once, and they all have very different previous lives, but the one thing they have in common is that they've all joined Bears Unlimited this year and have all settled in really well.

The first to be introduced is Victor of the lovely furry coat, who is sitting to the left of the picture. Victor was presented to our female minder as a leaving present when she changed jobs at the end of February. As our minder works for Victory Housing Trust there was only one name for this new bear, Victor. He might look a bit serious in the picture but he is a cheerful soul who does smile a lot - trust us.

Hot on the heels of Victor, came Peter who is proud to wear his yellow RNLI coat. You won't be surprised to hear he is a member of the Sheringham RNLI crew and, like Victor, he has very thick fur to keep him warm when out on the boat. Peter and Boating Bear Eddie, hit it off immediately and Peter has spend the summer helping Eddie out on his seal boats.

Bear number 3, in the middle, only arrived yesterday. He is Nick, the picnic bear and he arrived in the rather fine picnic hamper that the 3 guys are sitting on. Both Nick and the hamper were presents to us from two members of our extended family who got married yesterday. We allowed Nick a bit of a lie in this morning as he had such a big day yesterday, but he's been chattering non stop this afternoon - after all there are rather a lot of bears for him to meet. He's also been asking when he can go out with us on a picnic.

Welcome all 3 of you and we hope you'll soon join us in reporting lots of exciting Bears Unlimited adventures.

Love from all at Bears Unlimited xxx

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

There's a Hole in My Bucket, Sorry Roof ...

Anyone missed us while we've been busy? Probably not as there's been no clamouring to have some more posts, at least not that we've heard.

We thought we tell you about one of our recent projects. We've told you already how much we love having Ribby, the Eriba caravan, in our extended family.

When Ribby (Ribs) came to live with us, she was a fine caravan in every respect bar one. She had a patch of rot in her roof which had had a quick patch up job, but needed some skilled craftsmanship for a more permanent repair.

Who better to put on the project than Jimmy and Blue Bear, both of whom are skilled engineers and have very skilled and dextrous paws.

The first job was to back Ribs into the right hand side of the garage so she wouldn't be exposed to the elements when her roof came off. It was a good job we had the caravan mover so we could inch her in. It was a tight squeeze as you can see, with lots of calls of 'breathe in Ribs' especially on the freezer side.

The roof came off and was carried carefully into our makeshift workshop - the dining room. Carpenter apprentice Oscar, sitting by the hammer, shows you the piece of wood we had to cut out, with the rotten section in the middle.

In the foreground you can see the beautifully crafted and ultra smooth replacement section. We had to  take a cross cut saw to it to cut some strips in the back, so it would bend into shape, then it was glued in and weighted down. Once the glue was set, we did some fibreglass filling and skimming then, in best Blue Peter style, we finished off with a sticky back plastic covering.

The roof was now fixed but the tricky bit was still to come, getting the roof back onto Ribs and attaching it to the cantilever springs. It took a big work party of bears most of the afternoon, but we're very pleased with the finished job.

Aunty and Uncle G were the first to use Ribs after her repair when they came down for a Norfolk holiday and we think they were quite impressed. We'll be out in Ribs ourselves shortly to check the repair out for ourselves.

Love from the caravan repair crew xxx

Post Trek Travels

We hope you haven't missed us too much, but we're back again now!

Well, we were last in northern India at the end of our marvellous Singhalia ridge trek. The trek wasn't the end of our holiday though and we spent a great few days exploring Darjeeling and the he historic kingdom of Sikkim.

As we need to move on to more recent adventures, we'll just give you some of the highlights of our second week.

In Darjeeling we enjoyed pre dinner pink gins at the Windermere Hotel, a real relic from colonial times. We were served by a waiter in the most amazing Indian costume which must have been quite an embarrassment to wear today.  

Not being the most sophisticated bears, we didn't realise that a pink gin didn't include any tonic! We cracked after a couple of sips of the neat stuff and had to order some tonic.

In Darjeeling we also had an exciting visit to Himalayan Zoological Park and the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute; both share the same site.

Take our word for it, Yorkie and I are climbing on this rock face (Everest?) inspired by the words just above us - May you climb from Peak to Peak. Close by was the site where Tenzing Norgay was cremated and where his ashes remain.

The highlight of the zoo visit was seeing those red panda which had been so elusive on our trek.

There were quite a few of them and they weren't in hiding. They were truly beautiful and we were so pleased to see them at last.

In Sikkim we stayed in some marvellous hotels. Our favourite was this beautifully decorated family run hotel the Netuk House Hotel in Gangtok. Our male minder is in the doorway of our upper room with balcony.

We were welcomed with glasses of Sikkim cherry brandy (delicious) and also got to try the local millet beer which was served hot and drunk through a straw (not so delicious). We were also served a traditional Sikkimese meal which had some, interesting, elements.

We did a fair amount of temple visiting. Here Gio admires the artwork at the famous Rumtek monastery, founded in the !6th Century.

We also attended a full Buddhist service with lots of chanting, gongs, horns and cymbals. Sadly photos don't convey what a sensory experience was; we really needed a recording for you.

After a whistle-stop tour of Sikkim, we had the authentic experience of an Indian sleeper train journey. Much to our surprise we slept quite well and arrived in Calcutta in time for breakfast.

In the afternoon we had a guided tour of Calcutta and what a gem it is. It is a beautiful city with some lovely architecture, historic buildings and lots to see and do.
 

Go particularly enjoyed seeing the Victoria memorial. It was just down the road from the Calcutta cricket ground and race track. Sadly there was no racing on the day we were there.

We much preferred Calcutta to Delhi and would recommend a visit to anyone. We will be waxing lyrical in the relevant chapter of the Friendly Planet Guide. The only downside was that we it made for a long journey home to England as we had to fly to Delhi first before boarding our flight back to London.

We do like India and we're sure we'll be back.

Love George, Yorkie and Gio xxx

Party Time

The Lodge had a fine dining room which we'd discovered when we went there on arrival for tea and biscuits. We were especially impressed by 2 lots of framed words from the Dalai Llama that were on the walls - how's this for an example - are you inspired or not?

One moment we were planning to eat our final trek meal in the dining room, then the next moment we weren't. What had changed? Dilip had discovered that we would be sharing the dining room with the the other trekking group, the 'hoorays'. This didn't meet with Dilip's approval at all, and the next thing we knew, the dining tent - which we thought had been put well away, not to be seen by us again - was coming out and being erected on the main lawn ...

We all thought this was great, as the dining tent was so familiar and it was where we'd enjoyed every other trek dinner.  Being in the dining tent that evening was even better than on the trek, as there was a crate of Sikkimi beer (pretty strong at 8%) to enjoy (pacing ourself at that strength of course!).

As always the meal was tasty and filling and for pudding we had a special treat. Manilau, the cook, had baked a special Singalila Trek cake - served an a silver salver no less. We had to take a photo quickly as it didn't hang around - it was cut and consumed pretty quickly.

After dinner came the serious business of final speeches and tips and thank you's to the trekking crew, who had done such a fine job of looking after us ...

Then came singing and dancing: first a Nepali song, then a western one, and so it went on, alternating, for a while. As we went outside for the Hokey Cokey (what else?) everyone was having a great time and we were mixing well across our respective cultures. We looked across to the dining room where the Hoorays didn't look to be having anything like as much fun.

And after the entertainment there was a proper bed and a bathroom to look forward to - what more could anyone want?

Lots of love George, Yorkie and Gio xxx

The Nearest Thing to 5 Star Luxury

It's now time to tell you about the final day of our Indian trek ('about time' we hear you say!).

We were on our way back to civilisation; indeed we were even due to end the day in a small town. Before the town though, came lots of small settlements; we were still in lovely countryside but we were passing schools, smallholdings, houses and even a tea shop ...

... we stopped for delicious ginger tea which was served in these beautifully patterned and colourful mugs with their own lids. Roasted sweet corn was passed round for us to nibble on - very scrummy and a lot healthier than our usual snack of crisps or chocolate.

We knew the tea was fresh and local when we turned round and saw tea drying in the sun ...

... it was very grey and made me think of Earl Grey, it was hard to imagine that this might have been the ginger flavoured tea we were drinking as it didn't look gingery.

Just before lunch we did our final downhill and forded a river, as the bridge over it was apparently unsafe. We were now down at the bottom of the valley even though we were still quite high (2,286m)  by British standards.

Our final 2.5 miles was along road - part dirt track and part tarmaced. It was strange to have to get out the way of an occasional car. It was an easy, mostly flat walk with lots of interesting things to see along the way. There was this lovely clump of bamboo, which was a lot more colourful in reality than it looks ...

... there were also colourful roadside shrines and temples. 

All too soon we reached the small town / large village of Rimbik. We'd been told we would be staying at a basic lodge where we would be sharing 2 showers. As this would be our first shower for nearly a week, we were planning a rota with strict time allocations. As we arrived we were pleasantly surprised by how nice the lodge looked and how beautiful the gardens. The best surprise, however, came when Dilip told us that most of us would be getting private verandah rooms with, wait for it, an ensuite bathroom.

We got one and it was lovely - front door as below ...

... we sat outside, as you can see, relaxing and enjoying the gardens, so as to let our minders shower first; bears are generous like that. 

The real icing on the cake though, was to learn that our rival trekking group (the hooray Henrys introduced in our Camp Wars post) were also staying at the lodge and they had not got ensuite rooms so were having to queue for a shower. This really was one up to Dilip and Exodus and we couldn't help but secretly chuckle and count our blessings.

The men in our party went off for a shave and head massage at the local barbers, then it was time for our farewell meal with our trekking crew. We had an interesting venue for this - find out where, next time.

Love George, Yorkie and Gio xxx