Creepy light!

This is seriously disturbing - it will give children and bears nightmares for years to come!  A headless bear as a bedside light - what were they thinking of?  If we bears had thumbs, we would give this a BIG thumbs down!

Spooky Bedtime Reading

Bev tucks us up in bed at night and reads us a bedtime story, but recently the stories have been a bit scary for us little bears. First, there was The Terror (the title says it all, really), about a mystical polar bear hunting down the members of the John Franklin expedition in the arctic. Bill and Phoebe loved the descriptions of the icebergs, snowy conditions and yummy seals, but we all hid under the covers when the monster polar bear appeared! 
So, having just got over the nightmares from that book, she has started reading us the book Dracula! Oh no, another spooky book!
Phoebe's favourite book was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  She was seriously impressed with the kick-ass heroine, Lisbeth, whose favourite weapons include guns, a taser and a staple gun!  Hopefully the book doesn't give her any ideas coz Phoebe is scary enough without a taser!

Bill is in love!

Bill is in love, though the object of his affection is too young to know it yet!  Meet Anori, the half-sister of the famous polar bear, Knut.  She is so cute and cuddly at the moment!  Bill is now making plans for us to visit Anori and her mum Wilma in Germany.

Find out more about Anori and see more adorable photographs at:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2122888/Meet-new-Knut-Zoo-crowds-wowed-tragic-polar-bear-s-sister-whisper-cuter.html

Eek, it's suddenly cold!

Having basked in nearly tropical temperatures for the last 3 weeks, it came as a bit of a shock to see "frost" on the car this morning!  We bears went back to bed, leaving Kitty to snooze on the bed and the humans to get ready for work.  This is the weather for hiding under the duvet and keeping warm!

Bev said we didn't know what we were missing - deep blue and pink sky as the sun came up, the sun a golden ball of fire rising through the mist, white frost on the ground.......  We bears can't be doing with all that frosty stuff - it sounds like time for us to hibernate until Christmas, though obviously we'll wake up occasionally for a  pizza or curry :-)

Pinch, punch, first of the month....

Yup, it's September already - so, what has happened in August and what are we looking forward to this month?

Well, August, like much of the summer, hasn't really lived up to its name.  It's been the coolest summer since 1993, with chilly temperatures, overcast skies and rather a lot of rain.  It's also getting much darker in the mornings, so our humans have been struggling to get out of bed and Kitty has been staying in until the wee small hours  to catch up on his big Zeds!  Sadly, Autumn is on its way.

But, we have lots to look forward to in September!

• Firstly, it's the World Final and World Masters at Northampton on the 10th and 11th of September - we're all looking forward to this!  Bev has avoided some previous World Finals because of her dodgy knee and problems with  the lack of seating but this year, all being well, she is taking her mobility scooter and sitting in the upgraded disability area.  Well done to Northampton Stadium for accepting that disabled people actually exist and want to do what sensible able-bodied people do - watch thrilling stock car racing!
• Then our pets are having a week's holiday to chill out and prepare for the winter.  And while they plan to unpack some boxes, get the car serviced and generally chill out, we bears suspect there will be more chilling out than emptying boxes going on during that week :-)
• And, poor Carlos has been in hospital with a cracked hip, so is now recuperating at home. He is doing remarkable well and is keeping his pecker up, so we bears are very impressed with his progress.   Our get well wishes to the grumpy old man and our commiserations to the Nice Lady from Stirling - hopefully life returns to some semblance of normality very soon!

Ok, we are off to put on our winter clothing as Bev is threatening us with no heating after the poxy utility companies put the energy prices up.  She says we all need to spend more time huddled together in bed and wear woolly clothes to keep warm this winter!  Sounds good to us, though we may need to find a way for the pizza delivery boy to bring our scrummy food up to the bedroom otherwise we will get chilly climbing out of our cozy bed.  Ok boys, thinking caps on - how do we pay the pizza boy and get delivery right to our bed without having to get out from under the covers?

Nasty Greeks!

Our friend Hamley, a little polar bear who is travelling the world, has had a horrible time in Greece!  When he wanted to have his photograph taken at some of the tourist locations, his owner was told it was disrespectful to have a "baby toy" in the photograph and they were asked to delete the photograph!  The Greeks may have had a great civilisation once, but now they can't even work digital cameras, so they didn't spot that Hamley kept the photographs of his trip around Greece.  But it has been such an unpleasant experience that he says he is never going back to their horrible country!

So, to all the bears and toys out there - travel to Greece at your peril!  It sounds like an exciting place to visit, what with plate-throwing, lots of strong alcohol and ancient monuments, but who wants to visit a place where you are insulted and made to feel unwelcome?  

If you want to see Hamley's Greek photographs, check them out here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hamley/with/5039812504/

Bear Behaving Badly

At last, a TV programme for bears - Bear Behaving Badly!  This is on CBBC every morning at 8am, and it is great fun.  We love Neville, the blue bear who seems to do a lot of burping and farting in bed, and like us he loves ice cream.  Having just discovered this gem of TV, we're off to watch previous episodes on BBC iPlayer!

Here is a photograph of Neville the blue bear and his friend Barney. 

Picnic Basket and a miracle!

Bev has spent the summer looking for a nice picnic basket that will carry food, plates, glasses, cutlery and food for her and Paul, us bears and Tony the Chimp.  We don't see the need for cutlery or plates coz we always eat with our paws, but you don't argue with Bev when she is on a mission.  With autumn approaching, she had given up looking for her picnic basket when a miracle happened!  Paul needed a rucksack / coolbag for his work lunches and purchased one in the sale at Millets.  But when he opened it up, to everyone's surprise he found plates, plastic wine glasses, napkins, a chopping board and cutlery!  So, Bev got her picnic basket / rucksack after all!

Ok, when are we having our next picnic and what yummy food are we taking?

Naked Housework? Part 2

Ok, Phoebe says Neil can't be hunky coz he didn't include a photograph of himself on the flyer we received - she got excited at the thought of a photograph of him in just a pinny, but was disappointed by some arty images of a dustpan and brush! 

SHOW YOURSELF, NEIL!  WE WANT TO SEE YOU IN JUST A PINNY! 

And if Paul looks prettier in just a pinny, he gets the job, including gardening in the buff!

Naked Housework?

We have just received a leaflet through the door for "Neil's gardening and naked housework services"!  Apparently, he charges reasonable rates, but notice that he doesn't offer to do the gardening naked - he must have seen those prickly shrubs outside the front door and decided that it was too dangerous :-)

I'm off to call Neil now - Phoebe will love seeing a hunky, naked man doing the housework, and perhaps he has a sister or two for Bill and myself :-)

Money-saving / money-making ideas from Hamish

So, with Bev out of work we have had to come up with some money-saving / money-making ideas that don't involve much work by us bears.  Here are some of our ideas:

• Steal a car and sell it or use it in a bank raid.  It would be exciting but a bit risky - after all, we don't want to get shot or spend time in jail!
• Put Phoebe out on the streets, with Hamish, Bill and Tony as her pimp - we're not sure what a pimp is or what he does, but he always seems to make a lot of money.  And what does Phoebe do on the streets anyway?  Bill thinks she robs people, but I think they give her money for looking so cute!
• Make and sell drugs - we have no idea what you put in drugs, but perhaps some we could find some dodgy mushrooms in the woods or use some chemicals from Paul's shed. 
• Raid the bins at a supermarket for food
• Post our bills through someone else's door and hope they pay them for us
• Release lots of mice and/or rats into an area and then charge for Kitty to get rid of them
• We all move into the shed and rent out the house for an exorbitant amount of money or even run the house as a B&B, though our part of Hertfordshire is hardly a tourist hot-spot!

Please send any money-making or money-saving ideas, not matter how bizarre, to Hamish, Bill and Tony and we will test them out.  We may even award a prize for the most inventive and least labour-intensive one, though if we end up in the pokey Tony will be round to give you a good kicking!

A role model for us little bears.....

I found this on today's BBC News website. This bear has become our hero and role model, though I am surprised that he didn't like the Serbian turbo-folk music - sounds like paw-tapping stuff to us!

Bear Charged with Stealing Honey
The taste of honey was just too tempting for a bear in Macedonia, which repeatedly raided a beekeeper's hives.
Now it has a criminal record after a court found it guilty of theft and criminal damage.
But there was an empty dock in the court in the city of Bitola and no handcuffed bear, which was convicted in its absence.
The case was brought by the exasperated beekeeper after a year of trying vainly to protect his beehives.
For a while, he kept the animal away by buying a generator, lighting up the area, and playing thumping Serbian turbo-folk music.
But when the generator ran out of power and the music fell silent, the bear was back and the honey was gone once more.
"It attacked the beehives again," said beekeeper Zoran Kiseloski.
Because the animal had no owner and belonged to a protected species, the court ordered the state to pay for the damage to the hives - around $3,500 (£1,750; 2,238 euros).
The bear, meanwhile, remains at large - somewhere in Macedonia.

Way to go, Mr Bear - you enjoy yourself and, if you get a chance, send us some of that delicious honey (drool, drool)!

So, did the earth move for you?

Last night we had the largest earthquake in the UK for nearly 25 years. So, did the earth move for us? No actually, Bev, Paul and us bears were partaking of the big Z's at the time, so didn't notice anything unusual. However, Phoebe says the earth did move for her - perhaps I need to check what she and that naturist Italian bear Bruno were up to last night!

Carlos and the nice lady in London

Carlos and the nice lady from Stirling were in London yesterday to celebrate the nice lady's birthday! So, Bev and Paul headed off for London by train (a bit of an adventure for Paul, who never uses public transport) and met Bev's mum and dad at Sloane Square. They all went for lunch and had a natter in the afternoon before heading off for a lovely Italian meal in the evening. You'll notice that they didn't take us bears with them, so we missed out on the yummy grub, unfortunately :-( Why didn't you take us with you? You know we love Italian food - especially Bruno, who is Italian and has thumbs. But the rest of us love pasta too, even if we struggle to eat it with our paws (no opposable thumbs, just like Eddie Bear)! That's the reason we dribble our food down our t-shirts. Hmm, not sure what excuse Carlos, Paul and Bev have, mind you - despite having opposable thumbs, they still manage to dribble their food down their t-shirts! On the other hand, you'd never catch the nice lady from Stirling dribbling HER food down her clothes - she's obviously got the hang of using those thumbs!

A Grand Day out at the Zoo

Ok, it was August Bank Holiday yesterday, and for a change it was sunny and warm-ish. Bev and Paul wanted to go out for a walk and take the cameras, so decided to go to Whipsnade Zoo - it's a large open space with lots of walking and plenty of cute and cuddly animals for them to photograph. And they took Bill, Phoebe and myself along too, so that we could go and play with the bears - they have brown bears at Whipsnade, and while they are very friendly, they are a bit on the big side to be playing with us little bears. Never mind, we had a lovely afternoon with them, managing to escape with only a few scratches and bruises, and we also got to see some other animals too - sleepy but scary tigers, cute ring-tailed lemurs sunbathing on the grass, delightful little otters living on an island with their own moat, two very elusive red pandas high up an oak tree (Bill and I were going to climb the tree and poke them so that Bev could get better photographs, but Paul threatened to smack us if we did!), stripy zebras, reindeer, a very regal lion called Spike, some ferocious lionesses (luckily we were behind some very thick glass at this point), lots of cute penguins, beautiful birds of prey, a baby elephant and a baby giraffe.

All in all, it was a brilliant day out and we will definitely go back to see our new furry friends.

Dutch phrase

According to Babel Fish, the phrase "my furry friends and I are hungry and need a BIG bowl of porridge" translates as "mijn bontvrienden en ik ben hongerig en heb een GROTE kom havermoutpap nodig" in Dutch. However, when this is translated back into English it comes out as "my furry friends and I are hungering and need a LARGE bowl of oat malt pulp".

Perhaps we need to take our own porridge with us just in case. This Dutch oat malt pulp sounds pretty disgusting :-(

Meet Alfie

Meet Alfie, the new bear in our household - he is Paul's birthday bear from Jack, Ashleigh and Bethany. Alfie is quite big, so he can't get into the bed with the rest of us bears - there just wouldn't be enough room for the bears and humans if Alfie slept with us. So, Alfie has been relegated to sleeping downstairs at night, but he is quite happily forming his own gang of downstairs bears and assorted stuffed toys, so we are all happy! Hey Alfie, do you want to sleep in our bed while the humans are off on holiday? Do you like pole-dancing bearesses? Oh, I can tell we are all going to have fun over the next few weeks while the humans are away, though Bev has warned us that we will all be in BIG trouble if she comes back to a trashed house!

Paul's Birthday, Part 2

Ok, did we enjoy Paul's birthday party or did we take Bev's advice and behave ourselves? Well, here is the photographic evidence of what we did - Bev promised to name and shame us if we misbehaved, and that we certainly did! We ate too much, we drank too much and we partied too much! And what are we going to do when Bev and Paul are on holiday? Yup, we're going to eat, drink and party for a fortnight - the pole-dancing bearesses are booked for us boy bears, a chippendale bear has been booked to amuse Phoebe, and we have a supply of drink and food being delivered this weekend!

I have a new name

Ok, after lots of suggestions from Bev and Paul, their parents and friends, new bear finally has a cool name - Angus! This name was suggested by Lucy, an ex-work colleague of Bev's, who thought new bear looked like Angus Young of the band AC/DC in his school uniform, and it was also a good Scottish name. Other suggestions were George (too dull), Damien (too spooky - it made us want to check the back of his head for the numbers 666), Hector (reminded us of the dog in Hector's House), and Walter and Rab were too old fashioned. So, new bear is now Angus.

Perfect weekend

Despite the unsettled weather, Bev and Paul managed to get out for walks in two different woods this weekend, and took us along too! Bev checked out the Woodland Trust website and found an interesting walk in Penn Wood in Buckinghamshire, so off we all went in the car. We had a picnic, then trotted off into the woods - Bev and Paul wanted to walk, take photographs and see birds, while we bears wanted to chase the wildlife, climb trees and generally have fun! Penn Wood was lovely, with lots of large beech and oak trees, rowan, rhododendrons and silver birch.
Then on Monday, rather than doing their chores, Bev and Paul bunked off to go for a drive and took the cameras to Woburn Park - they parked and took some photographs of the deer before being hussled off the grounds by a burly security man. We bears would have rugby-tackled him to the ground and bundled him into the boot of the car, but Bev told us to behave. Anyway, Bev and Paul got some lovely photographs, and also walked a little way round the Woburn Circular Walk, but had to give up as it was getting late. By the time they got home, unloaded the car and we all had dinner, it was 8.45 pm! What time is that to feed hungry bears?