Sonning Bear

I have been busy writing my latest article for our local Inland Waterways Association magazine, which isn't about boats at all this quarter. Instead, it's about the marvellous Spitfire flight he had thanks to @tourguideted.bsky.social and his hooms.

Hanley Bear had a soggy day at the match yesterday, watching Stoke City draw against Bristol City. It was very windy and wet and there were no goals. He was glad to get home and sit on the radiator to warm up.

Hanley Bear and Polar took Grizzly for a walk in Hanley Park this morning to try out his rollator. Hanley Bear says it's great, as it has a Bear carrier on the front which would hold four or five of us, so maybe next time there will be extra Bears coming into the café for cake!

We had a lovely day yesterday, as Grizzly came out for a trip on our narrow boat for the first time since he had his stroke. Polar got a takeaway Sunday dinner for us from the Rising Sun pub at Scholar Green and Grizzly was able to steer the boat into a lock. We are very proud of him!

I helped Polar do some work on our narrow boat yesterday, putting little brackets in place to secure the gas pipes, which Mr Rupert the boat safety inspector said we needed to do. And we unpacked the pretty storage tins we got in the Emma Bridgewater sale, and set up the damp traps.

We had a lovely day out on Sunday, when Polar took us all to the Churnet Valley Railway to watch the trains. And we had oatcakes and cayk! Grizzly did some more walking with his quad pod stick too.

Hanley Bear went to the match with Polar and Grizzly today and saw Stoke City beat Charlton Athletic by four goals to nil!

Polar has spent the last week repairing one of our ponds that was leaking - with a little bit of help from Hanley Bear and lots of rainwater from the water butts, thanks to all the thunder storms

We are in this coming month's @towpathtalk.bsky.social newspaper!

A marvellous boating day, travelling from Etruria Junction through Hanley Park (with Hanley Bear helping on the tiller), lunch at Emma Bridgewater and finally mooring just before the heavy rain started at our favourite spot outside Milton. #Staffordshire #StokeOnTrent

We had the most marvellous weekend at the Etruria Canals Festival this last weekend. We came to the Festival on "Uppie", our narrowboat, and saw lots of historic boats and the Fund Britain's Waterways campaign cruise!

Huddlesford Bear and I joined our human guardians for our first trip of the year on Uppie (Uplander II) our narrowboat. We had a lovely day, and I had a little drink of Polar's shandy, while Huddles had some beer bubbles.

One of our Best Bear Buddies, Little Brown Bear from @geckocomms.bsky.social is missing! Please look out for him if you are in North Devon. We hope he is found soon as he will be sad and scared without his Human Guardian and his Hug

Hanley Bear thought it would be fun to send Vale-rie a #ValentinesDay card. We hope she liked it!

Hanley Bear's old "lucky jumper" stretched so much from being washed that it fits me now, so we both went to the match against Southampton yesterday. Hanley was very sad, because Stoke lost by two goals to nil, but Grizzly's son Mr George was pleased, as "Saints" are his team.

Human guardians took us to see the local starling murmuration again yesterday. I think there are even more of them now!

January can feel a bit...January. A quiet walk beside the water can help more than you think. These peaceful areas are vital, but they're at risk from chronic underfunding and a changing climate. Propel IWA action forward and join us for as little as £4.50 a month. waterways.org.uk/support/ways...

Have you seen this, @hattieotter.bsky.social ?

My friend Hanley Bear has asked me to share this poem about his home city. He says it explains why he is sometimes a fierce Small Bear, but is very good at heart. Mr Nick Degg was poet laureate for Stoke-on-Trent's centenary last year. We like his poems.

We Bears are thinking of using this as our main social media account this year, because X is being so horrible at the moment (not to us, but to some female humans and human cubs). I am also going to write more for my blog and share some of Polar's pictures. This one is of the "Wolf Moon".

I have been a very, very buy Small Bear today, and written another post for my blog. This one also stars Hanley Bear, going to Parliament to seek #VotesForSmallBears. bearonaboat.blogspot.com/2025/10/orde...

I have managed to get to Polar's laptop and do a little blog post about Hanley Bear's Stoke-on-Trent Centenary mission - to find all the Bottle Kilns in The Potteries and get a photograph of himself with them. This is the first part of the mission... bearonaboat.blogspot.com/2025/10/hanl...

Hanley Bear helped Human Guardian Polar show human cubs how to make mini allotments for salad leaves in "Me Park" today, with the Friends of Hanley Park. But it started to rain so hard that everyone had to pack up after about 90 minutes.

I have (at last) written a blog post about our friend Tunstall and his journey around the world with little pal Amy. *Biggest hugs* to @hattieotter.bsky.social @oliverbear.bsky.social @millymammoth.bsky.social and @bearspipe.bsky.social. bearonaboat.blogspot.com/2025/09/tuns...

Here's another one of my blog posts. This is an article I wrote about boating in Stoke-on-Trent because so many boaters go straight through our city without stopping, when there is a lot to see and enjoy. bearonaboat.blogspot.com/2025/08/boat...

Hanley Bear says I need to get back into writing my blog and sharing it on Bluesky, as we are having lots of #SmallBearAdventures. This post, which involves steam trains, is about how we celebrated Grizzly's birthday. bearonaboat.blogspot.com/2025/07/writ...

That this is presented by the media as “policy” is why we are in this mess. These are not serious people. These are monkey tennis ideas, as divorced from the reality of criminal justice as you might expect from a company fronted by multi-millionaire simpletons.

There are no words to convey the horror of 21 children in Gaza starving to death in the last 72 hours. There are no words to convey the horror of nearly a million more children being at risk of the same fate. The UK cannot stay complicit in this atrocity. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cv...