A Tale of Two Tummies

Dear readers, Benji Beddy Bear here to tell you all about the trauma recently suffered by my dear friend Randolph. Late one evening, when, being a night shift worker, he was about to start work, he went down with a bad stomach. We were all very worried: was it indigestion, food poisoning or even appendicitis?

In fact it was none of these. What you have to know is that Randolph is a hot water bottle and his tummy is made of rubber and holds water - or it did! He was about to take his usual enthusiastic flying leap into a cold bed, in order to do his magic warming, when he started to drip.

On closer investigation we discovered a terminal problem ...


Just look at the size of that tear. Randolph was naturally very upset, so I did my best to comfort him.

Fortunately, while this was terminal for Randolph's tummy, it wasn't the end of Randolph. We take disaster recovery very seriously within Bears Unlimited and regularly update and test our plans. We had, thankfully, planned for just such a catastrophe as Randolph's tummy failing, and therefore had a replacement to hand. This time a white one, rather than a red one.


Within minutes Randolph was fitted with the donor organ and was ready to work again. This left us with just one small dilemma, and you see Randolph puzzling over the solution in the last picture. We had to decide what to do with the donor's external shell. As you can see it had quite a funky freisian print. Randolph thought it might make quite a nice sleeping bag, although it would need to be for a smaller sized bear than him.

It is lovely to see my friend with a spring in his hoof again.

Lots of love

Benji xxx

What to Buy a Reindeer: Part 4

Hi readers, Randolph here, to tell you that I too am happy spending time indoors at the moment. This is because I got a new DVD to watch for Christmas, and a cold, snowy day provided just the right excuse to settle down to watch my new DVD with the rest of the Norfolk Branch friends.

Here I am showing my present to my friend Tommy, who as you know is our gardening bear.


Not surprisingly, the snow has put a stop to Tommy's work in the garden, so he was the first bear to ask me if he could watch the DVD with me.

As you can see, the DVD is Slumdog Millionaire, a film that the rest of the bears knew I was eager to see. We watched it a few days ago and treated ourselves to an authentic cinema experience, settling down to watch it with pop corn, glasses of Wherry and dimmed lights.

We thought it was a great film and recommend it to any of our readers who haven't seen it yet.

DVDs are great presents for hot water bottle animals such as myself, as we work night shifts, and rest during the day, but often have free time for fiilm watching in the evening, especially if our minders go to bed late.

Lots of love, Randolph xxx

Wot No Microwave?!

We hope you enjoyed playing spot the difference. Those of you who did, may have spotted the difference in the colour of the sky between the 2 photos.

It would certainly be true to say that we had a mixed bag of weather during this recent holiday. The week started off lovely and sunny, then it got very windy and then, in the middle of the week, the showers started.

The rather dark sky in this year's Tarn Hows picture was a sign that it was about to rain ... very heavily. Before we had completed our circuit of the Tarn, the heavens opened and we got very wet.


Back at camp Randolph (the hot water bottle reindeer) and Beddy Bear Benji knew they could provide just what was needed to dry us out and warm us up. The kettle was filled ready to be boiled to fill Randolph's bottle, but where was the microwave needed for Benji's sun bathing session, to warm him up so he could in turn warm others?

As you can see the guys had a good hunt round the camp kitchen, but on finding no microwave, declared themselves spectacularly unimpressed with its facilities, hence the glum faces.

Never mind Benji it's the thought that counts, and it was supposed to be a holiday for you anyway.

Lots of love the Bears Unlimited campers xxx

Holby City Comes to North Norfolk

We had a great party and ate so much of Oakley's huge '250 posts' cake that we all fell asleep, and it was only when we woke up that we remembered that we hadn't taken any photos. By then the cake was gone, so sorry, you'll just have to imagine it.

Anyway, back to more serious matters. The eagle eyed amongst you, may have noticed that Ungi has changed his appearance slightly in our new Bears Unlimited Board photo. He recently had to have a fur transplant to deal with a rather serious hemorrhage of the stuffing variety.


We are fortunate, that as there are so many bears gathered in one place, many of whom are now middle aged now, we can justify hospital facilities at our Norfolk home.

We are also lucky that one of our minders is quite a skilled bear surgeon, probably because she's had so much practice. Much of the experience has been gained by dealing with repairs to Randolph who appears in the picture with Ungi, about to wake up after his latest surgery. Although still a mere youngster, Randolph has the misfortune to make more visits to the operating theatre than most. We think this is something to do with the fact that he wasn't made in England (but we don't want to say where he came from, as we don't want to be done for slander).

Fortunately, us bears and reindeers stand up to surgery well and recover a lot faster than our human counterparts. We don't even have to have a general anaesthetic either. The combination of a pint of Wherry, a glass of wine and a shot of the Polish cherry vodka we brought back from Poland, knocks us out nicely, just long enough for surgery to be completed.

We think Ungi looks incredibly distinguished with his new fur sideburn, but we haven't persuaded him to have the other side done yet. He says it will only be a matter of time.

Have any of our readers got any surgery tales they'd like to share with us?

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Traditions Ancient and Modern.

Tonight we return to our Derbyshire adventure. Two of the travelling party had a rather perplexing experience in our cottage. The two in question are Randolph and Benji. You will have seen these two in earlier Bears Unlimited photos, but we don't believe they've been formally introduced.

Randolph is a reindeer who earns his living as a hot water bottle. Although born in colder climes he studied at reindeer training school in Yorkshire and, as a result, has picked up a rather charming Yorkshire accent. After specialising in heating studies he came top of his class. We'll tell you this as he is far to modest to ever mention it in public.

Benji is a Beddy Bear with a big tattoo over his chest saying 'warm me in a microwave' which is what we do. He tends to look very serious but he has a warm and friendly personality and is so supple he is a great gymnast. Not surpringly his hobby is visiting his sun bed (others call them microwaves).

Anyway, back to the story, our minders had a conversation about the bed warmer that was displayed on the wall. Randolph and Benji's ears pricked up when they heard the magic words 'bed warming'. They just could not believe that a round bit of metal with a long handle could be a relative of theirs, however, distant.


The picture reveals their incredulous expressions very well we think. After discussion between themselves, they concluded that they weren't surprised that evolution had selected against this branch of bedwarming articles, causing them to become extinct and simply museum pieces. After all, which would you prefer?

Love from all at Bears Unlimited xxx