The Bear doesn't read too well either.

He thought the sign said Balloon Bear. Oh how we laughed. 

This is one of the Pig's greatest moments, when he had his shirt signed by his all time hero, Richard Cockerill (AKA Cockers or Cocky) who was hooker for Liecester Tigers and now a coach.

On his first trip to Africa the Pig was quite brave - but being quite young he didn't understand about things eating other things. You'd never get him stood out in the open like this now (the Wuss!!). 

Whilst Rodney and Little Brown NEVER go out of the house, the Pig and Balloon Bear are inveterate travellers and have been to some really exciting places with us. Here is the Pig at Nanyuki in Kenya right on the Equator.  

This is a really early one of the Pig and Bear. When they were young they ran around naked all the time. You can see how balloon has lost some weight and how pink the Pig was way back then.

When we first made the rugby shirts for them it was for match days only, but as they do help keep them clean we let them wear them all the time now. 

This is the first photo we have of the Pig taken when we took him on holiday for the first time. This was in fact the holiday we took pity on him living in the car one night as it was thundering (and he was quite little then) and brought him into the cottage we had rented. He's never been on his own since!

Whilst this photo suggests he is reading the map, the truth is he's just looking at the colours. He claims he can read, but this is patently not true - he thinks words printed in large type are more difficult to read as they are bigger words than words on small type, no matter how many letters. 

Peace at last, something good on telly for them. 

The Pig's been in a bad mood today. You see cylists have been going past the house, and the Pig absolutely , positively, completely hates them. Worst of all are groups of cyclists racing - we don't know why, but he gets into a real monk about them.

We suspect it might be the lycra shorts and garish colours they wear, what evever, it has his ears back and snout twitching.

Naturally Balloon Bear, lover of all things sporty, likes to see them and insists on making a cycling movement himself. The end result as you can guess is a falling out with the Pig taking it as a personal slight that the Bear is "cycling" in his house.

Rodney and Little brown don't get involved in this one. As the cyclists are outside they not part of their world - neither of them lever leave the house. Just as well , with two of them already fighting, we don't want a little bike race to start a full blown riot!

We've had a couple of dodgy days with Rod recently. It's been hot and sticky and there's been the odd rumble of thunder at the end of the day - poor Rod hates thunder and lightning, and whilst Ballon Bear and the Pig are revelling in every clap of thunder and flash of lightning Rod is under the cushions on the sofa.

No matter what we do we can't make him come out - even the Pig can't pursuade him - and Rod usually does whatever the Pig says no matter how stupid.

The one thing he has taken to (not during storms of course) is sliding down the bannisters. Rod's just the right shape for it. Ballon Bear of course tries to get in on the act but being the wrong shape for bannister sliding he usually falls straight off and tumbles down the stairs in a most undignified manner.

They'd hate to admit it, but they do get on quite well sometimes.

Of course the one thing Balloon Bear likes above everything else is ........ yes you guessed it. 

Here's Balloon at one of his pilgimage spots - Twickenham. This was a particularly good day in Bear terms as he saw England beat Australia.

The Bear still believes he is Dean Richards and insists on having a number 8 on the back of his jersey.

His other favoritist place is of course Welford Road, home of Leicester tigers. If Balloon wasn't a bear he'd probably be a tiger - mind you he'd also probably be Wesley Snipes in that film where he catches the baddies by jumping out of a plane or Bruce Willis in any of the Die Hard movies, or James Bond (except Timothy Dalton) - or quite a number of other things. He likes rugby best though.

The Pig loves nur nurs (anything with a siren). When we visited one of our bestest friends a while ago the Pig was overjoyed to find their little boy had a fire engine. Prising Spig out of the cab nearly called for a real fire crew!