Monday 25 June 2012

Snot fair

I beg your pardon bear? Well it isn't. You promised me Germany and all you took me to was Londing. Ah, you mean "It's not fair." Yes, that's what I said, don't argue. But your title is a bit rude. Don't care, so there.

Getting back to the subject, we were meant to be going to Germany, but somehow or other we didn't go. The meetings were cancelled - don't get me started. We're going next week instead. Well I'm not holding my little breath.

ANYWAY, as I was saying. We got all packed up and ready to go, when the plug got pulled.  But that was alright in a way 'cos it was Ann's birthday and we thought we'd be away for it. Instead we had a wee party on the night with carrot cake and boy does that icing get into your fur.  Still, you can lick your paws for DAYS afterwards.

So on Wednesday were set off in the train. See, we got a very posh table with a light on it, and he was able to pig out on the free snacks and drinks and things. Tell tale tit. I had a small cake and a cup of tea. Well, and a glass of wine. See, I told you, he's a great big oinker.  'Scuse me, who had left over icing to keep them going?  Oinker, oinker, oinker. Takes one to know one.

Well, we arrived in Londing and took the tube and a taxi to Auntie Ros and Uncle Terry's house and it was really nice.  They have a balcony and I was able to go out and watch the river.  Do you like my flag?  It was for the celbearation of the Queen's 60th jubilee.  All the boats came down the river and passed right by their window, but that was  before we got there so I missed it, and the great big party.  We went to Ireland that day, sorry.  I waved the flag anyway 'cos that was fun.

In the next photo I'm sitting on the flag, because I very nearly got blowed away, and sitting on the flag was safer, and in the last photo of me this week I got to sit on the table and admire the view.  The spiky thing in the background is call the Shard Thames Tower, but it doesn't look too big to me in this picture, but if you look at the other one you can see that it sticks up quite a way.  In fact Alan says it's the tallest building in Western Europe, so I suppose it is quite big.

 If you want to see what Londing looks like from the top of the tower you can look here It's 360 degree panorama from the top and you can zoom in and whizz around, and get very dizzy if you do it too quickly. Alan's just been looking at it and now my eyes are every which way.  You can see the 'Lympic stadium, the Gherkin (The Swiss Re Tower), and the Londing Eye, and the river, and the Houses of Parlimint and Bearkingham Palace and everything. Oh it's exciting.  Makes up for not going to Germany I aspose.

Home this week, then Germany and Austria next week and Londing again and then Phillydelfia.  See you soon.

Jock.



Saturday 9 June 2012

Top of the Mornin' to yez all

From the title can you guess where I've been this week? You got it - Blackpool Airport.  No, really I was in Ireland.  It's just a hop and a skip away 'cos we can get the plane from the airport at the other end of the beach from where we live. It was a funny plane too with whirly things on the wings just like you can buy in the shops here on wooden sticks - only much bigger and not such fun colours.

We arrived in Dublin and then went off to a wee town called Maynooth and then out to our hotel - Carton House.  I was a bit worried that it would just be a posh cardboard box, and, given all the rain we've had, I wan't really looking forward to staying there.  He said not to be silly, and when we arrived, for once, he was right.  We had a lovely big room with great big windows with a view out to the gardens.  Just to be sure, I tested his bed for him and it was nice and soft.  I bounced up and down on it and turned a few summersaults for good measure.


When we'd had our dinner we went out for a walk and I got my photo taken in front of the old house - can you see me?

Have a look below and you can see me better.  It's always the same - he takes ages to take a photo and when he does there has to be three and sometimes the results aren't worth having.  But when I'm the subject they eventually look good, after all, with star quality in the model, things are bound to turn out for the best.



I thought I'd emulate Sebastian who's been collecting trees, 'cept I'm just collecting big things to sit on.  I thought I'd try trees too.  This one was very big and quite high up, so I got a good view.  Only one thing - Sebastian, how do you get prickles out of your bot?  I found that it wash't as comfy there as it looked and I squirmed around a bit because of the bark and stuff.

Well that was mostly fun and then we walked down the hill to see what we could see.  There we met some folks from Celbridge Camera Club who were out for the evening. I'm happy to say it was dry and the light was quite nice and we had a good chat with two lots of people.  The midges, midgies, mejazus or whatever you want to call them were out in force, but they left us alone mostly.  I gave them a stern talking to but they paid no heed.  Down by the pool I found this rubber ring but nasty old Alan wouldn't let me take it into the water, which is just plain mean. (It's only for emergencies and you weren't drowning, though you might have been if you'd jumped in.) You're still an old meanie. MEANIE, MEANIE, MEANIE. (Thank you, I love you too.)  

After I got over my disappointment (sulks you mean!) I went and sat on the bridge to add to my collection.  This time I got a cold bot - and Ann says if you sit on a cold thing you might get piles, whatever they are. S'all right though, 'cos I didn't sit there for long, there was much more exploring to do.
First I climbed an oak tree and sat on a big branch (It was a twig.) It may only have been a twig to you you big lummox but to me it felt like a branch (Listen, bounce fill brain you don't need to get so worked up.)

Ha, well after I bounced on my BRANCH I went and sat on a great big cedar tree.  I didn't get a cold bot and the bark was fairly comfortable.  Can you see me in the first picture?  I'm right next to the main trunk, sticking my tongue out at him for calling my BRANCH a twig.

 When he came closer I purtended to be nice to him and waved for his picture.
















Then we were ready to move on and we found a nice garden with a sundial in it.  There wasn't any sun by then as it was getting a bit dark, but it did give me somewhere to stand in front of the big old house.

I was still smarting a bit about that BRANCH so I thumbed my nose and blew a raspberry at him when he wasn't looking, quickly turning it into a wave when he turned round.  He's a bit deaf so he didn't hear anything either.

(Have you finished yet?) Nope, but I'll forgive you this time.

All this time he was still being a bit of a sea lion, barking away and also playing the nephalent too, but as the week went on he did get a bit better.

When he was out at his conference I did get out to play, but some people kept firing hard white balls at me. They hit them with big sticks straight at me. They shouted, "Fore," very loudly, but that was a downright lie, 'cos each time there was only one.

I even tried to hide in some metal cup things, but that was no good as they kept firing the balls in there too.  A couple of times I nearly got stabbed by some big sticks that were in the middle of the cups too.  (You were on one of the golf courses, as I explained.)  Well, golf, smolph it's cruel to wee bears.

It rained a lot too, so I just went back inside and jumped on his bed again. (So that explains the muddy paw prints and the bits of grass on the bed. The cleaners weren't very happy I can tell you.  And I still think you were naughty taking that golf ball.) What do expect a bear to do if he gets hit on the noggin by a ball? I hid it behind my back so the man wouldn't see.  He said it was the first time he'd lost a ball on the green, but it serves him right.

Next week we're off to Londing again and then Germany the week after. I think he shouldn't go to Germany too often 'cos he just gets germans and they make him bark and trumpet.

Bye for now and have a great weekend.  I'm looking forward to Jack's stories of Londing 'cos LT says he got tucked into lots of interesting places.

Jock

Sunday 3 June 2012

Barking Nephalents

I have disturbing news.  I seem to be living with something that is somewhere between a tuman, a fearsome doggy and a nephalant.  It's quite disturbing for a wee bear.


Alan was snuffling for a bit, but for the last five or six days he's been behaving a bit like a doggy and barking all the time.  He bends over and makes the most spectacular noise - a wheeze then a frightening bark.  Then he sits up and clamps a big spotted hankie over his nose and pretends to be a nephalent - trumpety-trumpet.  I can't understand it, but he's getting to be a bit more like himself though he has to take yellow and red capsules with things called bioticals or something in them - oops there he goes again.  Should I run away or stay? All this acting like other animals means he isn't paying to much attention to me.


Continuing the travelling
Since we got back from India, I have seen a few more places, though mainly from hotel rooms.


We'd been back a week when, whee off we went again.  To Londing a great big place for bears and tumans too.  Alan was out busy every day so I got to stay in his room.  I did get to play and by piling things up on the desk and scrambling up I got to see a school playground way down below me. School looks like fun.  There was a pertend ship, with a cabin and a porthole. Next to it there was a crocodile - not a real one but painted on the ground in pretty colours, and there were coloured dots to jump on and everything.   Sometimes it was even more exciting up there because to the right, tho you can't see it, is a big tall norspital with a flat roof and every now and again a cheliopter would land on it.  It was bright yellow and seemed to have people inside lying down and being carried into the norspital.  Alan says they were patience or something and very sick.


It was an exciting week even if he didn't take me out anywhere.
Home again on Friday and then on Sunday we went to Ipswich - not a very interesting place and all I could see out the widow was more buildings and wet roofs 

so I just sat on his pillow and tried to make as big a dent as I could.
Back home we went and the at the end of the week it was back to Londing.  I wanted to see that playground and norspital, but all there was to see out the window was a building site so I just sat on the desk and sulked.




 Things started to look up the following week, because we went to Germany to a place called Cologne, another big place for wee bears. We stayed in a very grand hotel - called The Grand Hotel, Schloss Bensberg.  When he told me the name I could hardly get my teeth around the schloss bit - but it just means castle.  Here I am sitting on the windowsill outside Alan's room.  You can just make out the top of the plashy fountain that was in the grounds.  For once I wasn't in danger of falling out and there was no risk of a hot bot moment.




The next picture is of me sitting on a sculpture in the grounds with the castle behind - very grand isn't it.  So grand is it that we even got a yummy chocolate each night, and the conference organisers had left a bigger bar in the room too and we scoffed the lot!


On our way home we went into the city and I got the chance to see the cathedral.  It was a sunny day and there were lots of people in the square and round about, so I kept myself self out of reach of sticky fingers.















We were no sooner home than whee off we went to Scotland to see Ann's Mum Nancy and also visit LT.  We all went out on Saturday so that 87 year old Nancy could take a class on her iPad. Clever and adventurous isn't she?

When she'd done that we went to a beautiful park in Glasgow called Pollock Park, which is where I saw this great big lion, well it wasn't so much lion as hunkering, ha, ha.  You can blame the script writer for that terrible joke.

Anyway it was nice sitting in the sun enjoying the warmth and meeting new people.  This time I got a mildly warm bot and it was quite pleasant.

It was the next day that he began to behave oddly.  He even worked from home for a couple of days, while practising to be a nephalent, and then whoosh off we went to Londing again, though this time not to a hotel.  


Instead we stayed at my Auntie Ros's and Uncle Terry's place.  They live in a very nice flat overlooking the Thames.  This week there's a big party on the river  for the Queen,'cos she's been Queen for 60 years, and lots of ships have come to see her.  When Alan, Ros and Terry came back from dinner, this is what they could see across the river.  It's a French ship called the Belem, but we couldn't really see much in the dark.




The flat is just down river from Tower Bridge and it has been specially lit up for the party.  The colours change from red to white to blue and it's all very pretty.  Alan took this after he had been sent to the doctor by Auntie Ros.  She said he was proper poorly. (So did the doctor.  He said "If you have any breathing difficulties go straight to hospital.") Oh my.





On Friday morning the sun shone and, though he was still being part doggy, part nephalent, Alan got this nice picture of the Belem.  Can you see the men up the mast?

Well that was that and off we went home.  This is the only photo of me on the trip and that's on the train on the way home.  It's a bit fuzzy, but I'll forgive him as he wasn't well and he was using his iPhone.




To-morrow it's off to Ireland and then next week London and the following week Germany, so it's all go at the moment.

Jock