An English Country Garden

The other day Bris talked to you about the mini marrows he found at the Hindolveston harvest. Today I bring you the other extreme and want to show you the real stonkers of marrows which I (gardening bear Tommy) grew in the Bears Unlimited garden this summer.


One of them was so big that I needed a big strong bear to carry it into the house. Blue Bear was exactly the bear for the job. Even he thought it was heavy, and when he stood on the scales with it, we found the reason why: it weighed a whopping 15 pounds. Head chef bear Oakley came into the kitchen to find out what was happening and got very excited about all the exciting things he could cook for us with these marrows.

Our marrows might be whoppers now but earlier in the summer the same plants were producing much smaller fruits, in other words they were producing courgettes.


Mind you, even as courgettes, they were bigger than average. They clearly liked the music I played to them and my daily conversations with them.

Chef Oakley got very creative when I presented him the fruits of my labours. Can you see what culinary delights he conjured up. We had delicious ratatouille and courgette cake. Oakley thought he had made so much that there would be spare for freezing but he had underestimated the size of bears' appetites when good food is put before them.

Lots of love, Tommy and all at Bears Unlimited xxx

An E-Mail for Bris

Bris was very excited today when he got an E-Mail from his friend Moose who visited last weekend on his way to Taiwan and Bris took with him to one of the harvest festivals.

This is Moose's E-Mail

Hi Bris,

It was great to see you last weekend, thanks for taking me around and letting me join in your harvest festival, here is a picture of the two of us and the apples and pears for your archive:


Sorry that the rest of the family couldn’t make it, but I was on my way to far off lands, anyway they [Gromit, Chick, Party Bear and Boulder ] send their greetings, and the latest family portrait:


After I left you I went to the airport (with a minor detour to drop off a VIP), where I left Gromit and the kids to look after Saabrina while I jetted off to on a very posh aeroplane, they were very keen that I buckled up and memorised the safety instructions, but everything was alright.

This time I got to sit upstairs on the aeroplane, I felt like a VIP myself !

It wasn’t long until I had to get straight into working, and going to important meetings, some were less well attended, but we did get plentiful supplies of water and toffees – which doubled as convenient chairs for small moose's.


Keeping in touch with the clan was a bit tricky, but I managed to find a payphone and was glad to hear that all was well back home – although the weather was a bit cooler than what we were having.


You’ll be glad to hear that after all the hard work was over I managed to get out for a drink and to see some of the sights


and even do a bit of demonstrating !


The flight home was over night, I was very tired and was missing the rest of the clan, perhaps I can get tickets for them all next time?


We’re all looking forward to seeing you all at Christmas time, then we’ll have a big family portrait done.

Best wishes

Moose.

Wheat, Wine & Mini Marrows

So far this year I've been to 3 harvest festivals. That's not bad going is it? I've also been to one harvest tea and one harvest supper. The food at the harvest supper was very nice but I didn't linger over it as I was eager to get back home to watch the rugby with the rest of the Bears Unlimited guys (the harvest supper took place on the same night as England's semi-final match against France, which was, after all, essential viewing).

The harvest celebrations have been a bit subdued this year as it's been a tough year for the farmers, what with bird flu, summer flooding, foot & mouth and blue tongue. We're lucky though, and a bad harvest doesn't mean we have to go hungry.


As you can see from the first of today's pictures we managed to accumulate a wonderful selection of harvest produce at one of the churches. I couldn't wait to try the scrumptious looking harvest loaf but was disappointed to learn that harvest loaves don't make good eating as they contain a lot of salt to keep them looking their best. Please note also, that the wine to the left of the picture has is Fair Trade - strangely enough I wasn't allowed that either.


See what I found decorating the top of the font. There were some really cool mini marrows as I called them - they were probably small squashes or gourds to be really precise. Perhaps I look a bit girlie though with those flowers decorating my ears. I reckon that if I'd draped that wonderfully coloured cloth round my shoulders I'd have looked just like Joseph with his coat of many colours.

Lots of love, Bris xxx

Why does Facebook Hate Bears?

Those of you who read our friend Naughty Bear's Blog will know that he, in common with hundreds of other wonderful bears, recently got kicked off Facebook for the really terrible crime of being a furry.

We were also kicked off Facebook at the same time and have been too angry to talk about it in public up til now (it also has something to do with the fact that we had other important matters to report on!)

Here is what we saw when we tried to login to Facebook to chat with all our friends, both old and new.


When we first saw the message we could not understand why our account had been disabled, our first port of call was the Facebook FAQ's for "Why was my account disabled?"

Your account was disabled because you violated Facebook’s Terms of Use, to which you agreed when you first registered for an account on the site. Accounts can either be disabled for repeat offenses or for one, particularly egregious violation.

Facebook does not allow users to register with fake names, to impersonate any person or entity, or to falsely state or otherwise misrepresent themselves or their affiliations.

This obviously did not apply to us, so we decided to send them an E-mail to ask why they had disabled our account. So this is what we sent:-

[Bearsunlimited@our-mail Wed Oct 10 13:41:14 2007]:

Our account has been disabled, yet none of your reasons for
disabling an account are valid. There is no false identity - are
bears not allowed to have names? and there certainly has been
no content that would offend. On the contrary all messages fall
into the charm category, make people smile and brighten their
day. What sort of an organisation is Face Book that it seeks to
ruthlessly and systematically terminate something that that
makes people happy and is entirely innocent - good, clean fun?
All I can say is that facebook is doing it's utmost best to make
the world a far worse place than it might otherwise be. Does it
make you feel better knowing that you have made happy
people sad because that is exactly what you are doing? We
really fail to understand. Only an unhappy, miserable person
would want to act in this way and we sincerely hope some
happiness comes into your life soon. Perhaps you should get
yourself a bear as they'll soon put a smile on your face.

Disillusioned Bears

Two days later we got a reply from their man Avery he wrote

From: Avery from Facebook [mailto:appeals-comment@facebook.com]
Sent: 12 October 2007 20:16
To: Bearsunlimited@our.E-mail
Subject: [rt.facebook.com #6715589] Baffled

Hi,

Fake accounts are a violation of our Terms of Use. Facebook
requires users to provide their real names. Impersonating
anyone or anything is prohibited. We will not be able to
reactivate this account for any reason. This decision is final.

Thanks for your understanding,

Avery
Customer Support Represetative
Facebook

We're still none the wiser. We're not fake, we've never impersonated anybody, and we've no desire to be anyone but ourselves (we quite like ourselves) !

So our message to everyone is if Facebook hates bears let's all boycott Facebook!

Love all at the Norfolk Branch
xxxxx

Comings and Goings

Dilly has now left us and returned home. This was sad for us as we greatly enjoyed having her to stay, and we do miss her now she has gone. However, it was not such a sad occasion for Dilly who was overjoyed to see her mistress again when she came to pick her up. We like to think Dilly had a good holiday with us and will ask to come and stay again the next time a holiday is planned.

Dilly's departure, however, coincided with a happy event, which cheered us up no end. This was the arrival of the newest member of Bears Unlimited. There is a link to Dilly, as our new friend was one of the gifts Dilly's mum brought us back from France as a thank you for having Dilly to stay.


As our latest member comes from France he has a French name. Il s'appelle Gilbert, pronounced Gil-bear (get it!). In our picture you see Gilbert being welcomed to Bears Unlimited by Marmaduke, as tradition has it that the previous newest member welcomes the new newest member (in the presence of the Bears Unlimited flag of course).

Gilbert is settling in well and already beginning to look a bit less serious than he looks in his picture. Our attempts at French and Gilbert's at English are proving very entertaining but we are all learning fast!

look out for some of Gilbert's adventures with us in the weeks to come.

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

Introducing Our Waggy Tailed friend

Jock and myself (Black Doggy), the canine members of Bears Unlimited (no it's not a contradiction in terms before Birigit says anything!) have had a very exciting and busy couple of weeks as we have been playing host to a new friend of the waggy tail variety.

Here's her picture, isn't she adorable?


Her name is Dilly and we think she is best described as a Border Collie / Jack Russell cross. She lives in the neighbouring village to us and came to stay with us a couple of weeks ago when her owner went on a well deserved holiday to France.

We were very happy to be able to offer a holiday home to Dilly and, as she is such a friendly dog, she soon fitted in and we all became best of friends. We wasted no time showing her round the house and gardens and she quickly learnt where the warmest place in the house is, in front of the fire.


We did tell her not to get any ideas about trying any fire breathing stunts as we'd promised her Mum we'd see she came to no harm.

Early on in her stay we had a mini conference explaining to Dilly the rules of the house and what she could expect from a typical day in our household. As you can see she proved a very attentive listener and took on board everything we said.


But then dogs are like that, they listen very attentively and are mostly eager to please. Dilly certainly proved she was no exception.

Keep reading to see us exploring the Norfolk countryside together.

Lots of love, Black Doggy, Jock & Dilly xxx