Chocks Away, the Sky's the Limit!

Having friends to stay is always fun and we aim to give them as good a time as we can. And so, when my brother Spike and a group of his friends arrived for a visit last week, I (Chelmer) came up with a really good idea for making his visit one he will always remember.

At the recent murder mystery evening we attended, we met a very nice man, Sqn Ldr Wan Flewover (Rtd). In real life he is an instructor for a Jaguar Simulator at RAF Coltishall. As he took a shine to us bears, he offered any of us who fancied it, a trip in a Jaguar (via the simulator). Being an action bear, I leaped at the opportunity and asked if I could take Spike along too, as I knew he'd love it.

We arrived bright and early and got a full briefing on what all the different knobs and dials were for. We first got a birds eye view of the cockpit and tried hard to remember what everything did.


We them jumped into the pilot's seat, the hatch was slid shut and off we went with the G forces pinning us to the seat . For our exercise we took off from RAF Valley in Wales (where the fast jet training for the RAF takes place) and quickly hit over 600 MPH.


We then took a fast turn and flew straight under the bridges on the Menai Strait, then decided to go up to 6000 ft before trying out a series of acrobatic exercises, including a Barrel Roll and a Loop the Loop. By now the adrenalin was really pumping and we couldn't stop the whoops of delight.

The instructor decided to give us a bit more of a challenge and sent up a few missiles which we managed to avoid by the skin of our teeth. Spike quickly struck back by launching a few laser guided missiles. As we were doing so well (the instructor later told us we were natural fliers) we were then given some advanced challenges (bird strikes and engine failure). We almost got through, although we did have a crash and had to get the flight restarted. We then headed for home slicing past Snowdon scaring a lone walker on Crig Goch, and then back into Valley for a fairly smooth landing. It was an exhilarating ride and we landed quite exhausted but very excited.

We then went down into the control room where we were shown all the controls that the instructor has at his disposal to set up all the challenges and test the trainees. If we had had more time we would have loved to have a go at instructing our minder who had come with us.


All in all an experience of a lifetime and we will be living on the memories for may weeks to come. So that we can sure it was not all a dream we were presented with a certificate to say that we had successfully completed our maiden flight.


Lots of love from a thrilled Chelmer and Spike xxx

Happy Easter (Part 2)

Another reason that we like Easter so much is because of the great food that is associated with it.

Bears just love Hot Cross buns especially toasted with real butter. In fact Sebastian and Marmaduke like them so much that they said they would be happy to eat nothing else but Hot Cross buns all day, provided the local shop could bake enough to satisfy their bear sized appetites.

In our first picture you see these two guys tucking into their breakfast buns. As you can see from Sebastian's face eating buns is a serious business.


By the time it gets to Easter Sunday, however, we have satisfied our Hot Cross bun craving sufficiently to get excited about chocolate Easter eggs. Buying Easter eggs this year has, however, been a bit difficult for us. Let us tell you why. As you will know from recent blogs we are keen supporters of Fair Trade and have undertaken to only buy Fair Trade chocolate as we won't buy from companies that condone child slave labour.

We are very unhappy with the leading supermarkets as the range of Fair Trade Easter eggs on sale has been very poor, for some of our friends it was non-existent, they failed to secure a Fair Trade egg after visiting 3 major supermarkets. We feel some 'disappointed of Norfolk' letters to the supermarket managers coming on.


As you see in our picture above we did have some success but we would have liked more choice. We tracked down a 'Divine' Fair Trade egg, which turned out to be a good one as it included chocolate brazils, another bear favourite. As this was the only Fair Trade egg we found we had to make do with the CO-OPs selection of Fair Trade chocolates as an alternative. Although this box of chocs is disappointingly not egg shaped, we do have to admit they are worth having as there are some rather special flavours. How do Berry Burst, Fudge Crunch and Madagascan Vanilla sound to you? For our nutella loving friend Bear, there is even one called 'nut heaven'.

Hopefully in our Easter blog next year things will be different, and there will be so much choice we will have to make decisions about which Fair Trade egg to buy, here's hoping!

Have a lovely holiday Monday,

Lots of love from all at B.U. xxx

Happy Easter (Part 1)

We like Easter a lot, so much so that we're going to break new ground and have 2 blogs today.

We've spent quite a bit of time in church this week remembering the events of Holy Week. After the sombre events of the Last Supper and Good Friday we were full of the joys of spring this morning as we came to join in the celebrations of Easter Sunday - the fact that the sun was shining when we got up, got the day off on just the right footing.


I (George) was honoured to have the job of lighting the Paschal candle. This represents the risen Christ, as a symbol of light dispelling darkness (death). It burns throughout the Easter period (up until the Ascension) and is a powerful and important symbol.

As it was Easter Sunday we had lots of good hymns to sing and we all belted out our favourite 'Thine be the Glory' at the tops of our voices. If you haven't heard a bear choir in action before, you should come and hear us as we fair raise the roof.


The smaller bears and Billy the Puffin were able to take a close up look at the Easter garden. They peered into the tomb to confirm it was indeed empty and Yorkie said he didn't really need the angel there to confirm it as he could see for himself. Yorkie also said that as he was a bear, he was definitely 'bearing' witness to the resurrection, wasn't he?

Part 2 to follow shortly.

Lots of love , George, Yorkie & Co xxx

Made in Norfolk

Another of our favourite programmes is Grand Designs. We are frequently amazed, at peoples' lack of control over spiralling costs. Sometimes it is unavoidable, and we always feel sorry for these people, but often people bring it on themselves, particularly when they keep changing their minds, and it is causing us to think that setting up some 'controlling your finances' workshops might be a new business line for Bears Unlimited.

We are often a bit behind in our viewing as we lead such busy lives, but recently we watched an episode where a thatched building had been destroyed by fire and was being rebuilt bigger and better than before. We felt quite proud that all of the reed for the thatch was supplied from a place in Norfolk not far from where we live.


On one of our recent strolls we watched the reed cutters at work and helped to protect a load of freshly cut reed from the elements and to get it ready for loading onto a lorry.

We can also happily confirm that there is plenty more reed where that lot came from, which is good news for our local bird and animal friends and our lovely North Norfolk landscape.

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Survival SAS Style

Our favourite TV programme at the moment is 'Born Survivor' which features our hero, Bear Grylls. Bear is also our friend Bear's hero, and why not, with a name like that!

In the programme he parachutes into really inhospitable parts of the world and has to survive and find his way to safety with just the clothes he is wearing, a flint, a waterbottle and a knife. So far he has tackled jungle, snow and ice, alligator infested swamp and remote mountains.

Our mouths drop open in amazement as we watch all the situations he manages to deal with. We enjoy guessing where he is going to sleep what he going to eat next but we are not sure we would manage the live frog and snake eating. Knowing our luck we wouldn't kill with the first bite and would end up with dinner wriggling in our tums.

The programmes have made us think that perhaps we should ensure that all Bears Unlimited members have some basic survival training.


As a joint effort we have therefore started putting together a course which we will all do in small groups.

In our first picture you see our two 'guinea pigs', Charlie and Bart, heading out into the woods to start their survival exercise (note the definite lack of equipment and supplies).

They proved a particularly good pair at finding places to shelter, first a hollowed out tree:


and second, a den closer to ground, again making use of a tree, this time a dead one. Don't worry we didn't make them stay out overnight - they only had to demonstrate that they knew what to do which they clearly did.


This pair came back with huge appetites so they might not have done quite so well on the food front but who can blame them!

Lots of love, all members of the Bear Grylls fan club xxx

We are Techno Bears!

As you will know by now, the Bears Unlimited brand covers an incredible variety of skills and trades, ranging from teaching Chinese to growing lavender and running seal trips.

Rather less interesting, but an important money earner for the Company, is I.T. consultancy. Bears Unlimited was recently awarded the contract to install a new network at a Norfolk Housing Association. We had to undertake this work at the weekend when all users were off the system and out of the office. This suited us well as we like to be left to get on with the job.


The job required a clear head to sort out all the various network cables. Yorkie kept out of the way as he said it was all spaghetti to him, but Chelmer, Rocko and myself (George) quickly had it all under control.

The job went so well that we finished the network commissioning and testing ahead of schedule. This left us some time to do some servicing of the photocopiers and printers.


As they were all working fine we were able to print out our invoice and leave it behind, so hopefully we will get a prompt payment and be able to put our next order of Wherry bitter in to the Woodforde's Brewery.

Don't forget where to come if you have a tricky job as it is quite likely that Bears Unlimited will be able to help.

Lots of love, the Bears Unlimited I.T. Team xxx

A Feast for the Ears

Yesterday we were very cultured bears. We went to hear Sheringham & Cromer Choral Society's performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion. We attended to support our female minder who was singing in it, but we do have an ear for fine music so we were more than happy to go.


With double choir and orchestra there must have been about 200 people performing so there wasn't a massive amount of room for the audience, especially as Bears Unlimited members occupied 5 rows. They managed to squeeze a lot of people in, however, and there was a good turn out.

The work was sung in full and lasts nearly 3 hours so it was necessary to make a start at 6.00 p.m. We therefore went prepared with sandwiches and picnic set. Out of respect for the work and the occasion, we decided to leave our Wherry supplies at home. Unfortunately the second interval had to be cancelled as to have it would have meant the orchestra would miss their train back to London. We therefore discretely munched while the performance was taking place, making sure we didn't eat any noisy food.

We thought it was a very fine performance although Chelmer thought it a shame that there were no drums as he was going to ask if he could have a go. A number of us have good singing voices so we're going to offer our services as soloists for the next concert.

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx