Merry Christmas from Hamish and friends!

A merry Christmas from Hamish and Bill, Phoebe, Nev and Tony the Chimp!  Hopefully you all had a great time with lots of scrummy food and drinks, great presents and time to spend with your loved ones.

We had a wonderful time and Santa brought us fun presents including a projection clock, a laser printer, beautiful Wainman racewear, little gadgets and some new additions to the family - Frankie Fox and Paddington Bear (with his own suitcase and passport) - photographs to follow.

We had a lovely time with Paul's family, and spoke to Carlos and the nice lady from Stirling on the phone, wishing them a merry Christmas and a Happy Birthday - poor Carlos was born on Christmas day, so he only gets one lot of presents a year.  He should be like the queen and have a pretend birthday in the middle of the year, and he would get twice as many presents as he does now!

Anyway, we're beginning to recover from too much food and drink, and we're getting geared up for Hogmanay (New Years Eve to the non-Scots out there). I've noticed that some nasty little rags that call themselves newspapers are saying that Auld Lang Syne is just a lot of old Scottish gibberish and that people shouldn't have to sing it if they don't know the words.  So, I've provided the first two verses below, which gives you plenty of time to practise before tomorrow evening:

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!"

"For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o'kindness yet,
For auld lang syne."

If you want to know more of this "Scottish gibberish", you can find all the words on Wikipedia.

Dear Santa.......

Dear Santa,

We have been very good little bears and a chimp this year, and hope that you won’t forget us when Rudolf brings you to our house.  So, what do us little bears and a chimp want, you ask?

Well, we’re extremely lucky toys, with more gadgets than you can shake a stick at (though why you would want to is a mystery to me), so all we ask is that you bring nice things for our humans and Kitty.  And if you could fix it for Paul to get better, that would make us very happy indeed!

Thank you to Santa, Rudolf and all Santa's helpers.  The mince pies, carrots and sherry will be waiting for you in the kitchen!

Merry Christmas,

With kisses from Hamish, Bill, Phoebe, Nev, Tony and Kitty xxxxx

Sickly festive season :-(

Oh dear, our house has been the scene of a very sickly festive season this year.  Both humans had 'flu before, during and after Christmas - Paul had a hacking cough and Bev was in a lot of pain from an ear and throat infection.  They both slept most of the time, and even poor Kitty joined in with a few sneezes and lots of sleep.  But, thankfully everyone now seems to be on the road to recovery, and Bev has finished her antibiotics so can celebrate New Year with a few tipples!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

What a Christmas we have had - lots of lovely prezzies, tons of delicious food, gallons of cider and hours of watching Bear Behaving Badly on TV!  Now we all have fat little tummies, fuzzy heads and burpy bottoms, but we are happy little bears!

Bill, Tony, Bruno and myself all got nice smelly stuff from Santy Claws, and Phoebe got girly stuff including a pretty bracelet.

Bev and Paul also got nice prezzies from Santy Claws, including an excellent Wallace & Gromit mug with dials to show the amount of milk and sugar you want in your tea / coffee, a huge Desperate Dan mug, a charger for multiple gadgets, the latest Scooter CD, and all 5 seasons of Foyle's War on DVD.

Here is the Wallace & Gromit mug:

Ok, we're off to watch more Bear Behaving Badly, so have a great New Year!

Christmas gadgets

Good old Santy Claws brought us a plethora of Christmas gadgets, including a brilliant new weather station which gives sunrise and sunset times, moon phases, moonrise and moonset times, and indoor and outdoor temperatures! Paul received several gadgets for his Karcher pressure washer - a rotary brush for washing the car and an extension lance for washing the gutters - so he is a happy man!

Bev also bought the iPod composite AV cable, which allows her to link her iPod to the TV to play music, videos and show photographs - it's a great gadget! She even discovered that you can play music of your choice while the photographs are being displayed on the screen - excellent stuff!

Well done Santy Claws, we all got excellent presents and had a great time!

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

Pinch, punch, first of the month, no return rabbit - yup, it is December already and I am a happy little bear. Why am I so happy? Well, firstly because it is only 20 days until the shortest day, so in 21 days the days will be getting longer again (yipee!). And secondly, I am waiting for Santy Claws to bring presents for us bears, Mr Chimp and Kitty the cat.

So, what have we asked Santy Claws to bring us? Well, Phoebe wants girlie stuff, Bill wants some aftershave coz he thinks he is now old enough to start shaving, Tony wants a biker jacket, I want surgery to stop my kneck wobbling, and Kitty wants a new set of teef so he can eat his food without dribbling! Roll on Christmas Day.....

Help ma Boab, it's Autumn already!

On the way home from work yesterday, Bev spotted that the trees were starting to change colour, and it was very dark at 5.20am this morning. Help ma boab, but it is Autumn already - we bears must have missed summer while we were snoozing!

Never mind, it will soon be Christmas :-)

Tacky Christmas Decorations

Ok, I know this is a bit late, but one of the things we HATE about Christmas is all the tacky lights and decorations that people put up outside their houses. This year we decided to take photographs of the tackiest Christmas decorations we could find and put them on the blog so that everyone could shudder at their ghastliness!

1st Prize goes to this display, which we found whilst driving to Paul's mum's house. Even in the dark you need sunglasses to look at this! And what about that inflatable Santa - how scary is that?

2nd Prize goes to this display, which also featured festive images projected onto the outside wall of the house.

And 3rd Prize goes to this display, which seems quite tame in comparison with the 1st and 2nd prize winners.

Well, that is the results for the Tacky Christmas Decorations competition of 2007. If you would like your house or a neighbour's house to appear in my December 2008 competition, please email me the address and I will be round with my camera!

New addition to the family

So, did we have a fabulous Christmas, and did we eat and drink too much? The answer to both those questions is a BIG yes! Santa brought us lots of presents and we had a fun day.

And what did the humans get from Santa? Bev got some Winnie-the-Pooh diaries, a boxed set of CDs of love songs, a wonderful framed photograph of Frankie driving with glowing brake discs, the Shrek 3 DVD and an Art Nouveau crafting CD. Paul got an excellent book on Frankie Wainman Senior, a book on buying and selling on eBay, and the 2nd series of Life on Mars on DVD.

In addition to those presents, they received a new addition to the family from Bethany, Ashleigh and Jack - a chimp with lots of clothes and smart accessories (see photograph). He came with smart bovver-boots, boxer shorts, jeans, t-shirt, hat and scarf, plus an iPod, mobile phone and mirrored sunglasses! All he needs now is a name.

Bill and I had to interview Mr Chimp to see if he could join our family, but we weren't going to reject him - firstly because he has lots of interesting gadgets (iPod, mobile phone and sunglasses), secondly because he is wearing big bovver boots and lastly because he looks as though he could kick the crap out of us bears! Ok Mr Chimp, you can stay but you can't sleep in the bed with those boots on, and we want to play with all your cool gadgets!

If you can think of a good name for Mr Chimp, please let us know.

Christmas Eve and Santa

Well, I am sitting here looking at my watch and waiting for Santa to arrive. I discovered I can track him using the following website - http://www.noradsanta.org/ According to Norad (North American Aerospace Defense Command) Santa is delivering presents in Kyrgyzstan at the moment. If I sit at the computer long enough, I might see him arriving at our house with all our presents!

Anyway, so what have we bears asked Santa for this year?

Hamish: I asked Santa for a remote control helicopter and some aftershave.

Bill: I asked Santa for a remote control helicopter too - perhaps we could have some dogfights! I'm not old enough to shave yet so I asked for chocolates instead of aftershave.

Phoebe: I asked Santa for a new credit card as my old one has stopped working, and I want some makeup and new clothes. Oh, and some new undies would be good too.

Merry Christmas everyone, and hopefully Santa delivers everyone's presents on time!

Dear Santa

Bill, Phoebe and myself have written our letters to Santa and are now waiting with bated breath for our presents to arrive. Bill - I don't think you will automatically get everything on your list, Hamish, it's not like ordering something over the internet, and anyway, you have to be a very good little bear to get presents at Christmas. Hamish - I disagree, if I ask Santa for something, I expect it to happen otherwise I will be a very cross little bear.
Ok Santa, our lists are as follows:
Hamish: dear Santa, I would like a visit from a babe, preferably Kylie Minogue (but don't tell Phoebe), along with my own stock car, a transporter, some mechanics, some new clothes, aftershave and chocolate. Oh, and I'd like some stuffing surgery on my neck, as it is now very wobbly, and my love handles too, if possible. I'd also like Frankie to have his Gold and Silver roof back again. There, that's not asking for too much, is it?

Bill: dear Santa, I would like the Care Bear Skills for Dummies book, a weekend at a relaxing health-spa with my human, chocolate and some bear treats. I'd also like my human to get rid of his cough. By the way Santa, do you think Hamish really needs aftershave - he isn't old enough to be shaving yet, and anyway, he's a furry bear! Unless of course he wants a trimmed muzzle like Phoebe.

Phoebe: dear Santa, I would like some nice clothes, perfume, girly things and protective clothing for going to the racing - you should have seen the state of me after the last race at Kings Lynn (I'm obviously a bit of a dirt-magnet like Bev)! There are some very smart mechanics' overalls on the Dress Your Bear website - they would do. Oh, and a new credit card, as my current one appears to have stopped working.

So, are the presents being sent by express sleigh-mail and when is the last date we can add to our lists so that the presents get delivered on time for Christmas?