It's truly amazing.

Normally they fight like Pig and Bear, but once they reach the Bush Balloon Bear really does take looking after the Pig seriously.

The Bear fears nothing but the Pig is afraid of everything in the African Bush as he believes it is all out to eat him.

There are clearly hidden depths to Balloon.


No doubt he will take it out on the Pig when we get back to the UK.

Balloon Bear loves Safari holidays (unfortunately he forgets he isn't supposed to wave to monkeys as they will steal him and pull his arms and legs off).

This one got off to a flying start with the hotel we stayed at in Jo'burg having a balloon in the back garden.

Followers of the Pig and Bear will be aware that Safari holidays are the Pigs idea of Hell on Earth.

This time we fooled him by having an overnight stop in Jo'burg before heading out into the Bush. The Pig loved it - hotel room with TV, casino nearby (no we didn't let him bet anything!) and manicured gardens.

Sadly it was all to go bad the next day when we flew up to our first camp.

One solution the Pig tried to protect himself from all the things out to eat him in Africa was the old Tortoise shell ploy.

Unfortunately this didn't work as
a) Kapamba Bush Camp might have been a little naffed off if we had taken the shell
b) It wouldn't fit in the bag
c) He heard a graphic description by Gilbert, our wonderful guide, of how big cats get at the meat of a tortoise.

The Pig is now thinking "guns - lots of guns".

The problem with taking Balloon Bear and the Pig on Holiday is they do so much like having their picture taken.

Staying at some lovely lodges we were lucky to have some great locations for pictures - so good even the Pig came out of hiding to have his "pictumumer " taken.

Here's one of the Pig and Bear with a sculpture of a Wild dog - one of the Bear's favourite animals.

The Pig had to be persuaded it wasn't a real doggy before he'd sit with it.

Balloon's penchant for stupidity shows itself yet again as he poses on a carving of a Buffelant - a rare cross between an Elephant and a Buffalo.

He now fancies a career as either a rodeo rider or a mahout.

Only in a room did the Pig feel any where near relatively safe - and only then because we tell him that mosquito nets are magic and can stop any predator that might be interested in eating him.

Of course this ruse started to leak when we discovered a couple of snakes in the room and became very cautious of getting in and out of bed in the dark - the Pig couldn't work out why we didn't trust the mossy net to scare away anything nasty!

As you can see BB doesn't worry about huge animals with bit pointy teeth - on the contrary he thinks they are all his friends and waves to everything.

We saw these lions in South Luangua national park in Zambia and were it not for the fact we were already searching our luggage for frogs Balloon was trying to bring home as pets we've no doubt he would have hatched some sort of plan to bring a lion home with him as a pet.

And so the trauma is over for another year.....

We've just returned from holiday in Zambia, a wonderful country with fantastic people - but African holidays are full of angst.

First of all there's the leaving home bit. Rodney and Little Brown clearly get upset at being left out, but as they won't leave the house there's little we can do other than tuck them up in bed and leave them the remote control for the telly.

Once we're away Balloon Bear isn't a problem - he loves watching wildlife (though he will insist on waving to monkeys despite warnings they will come and kidnap him and pull off all his armies and leggies!).

It's the Pig who gets the heebee geebies about holidays in Africa. He thinks everything is out to eat him and is very cautious of coming out of the bag. Normally he can't wait to have his picture taken, but on these holidays he burrows as far down in the day bag as possible. His paranoia even has him taking sides with the Bear who for ten days at kleast is his bestest buddy in the whole wide world (arse kicking returns as soon as he lands at Heathrow).

How pleased was the Pig to be back in front of his own TV, telling Rodney and Little Brown how brave he was faced with a roaring Lion charging out of the bush on the back of a rabid Elephant supported by robot dragons and giant man eating snakes.

We'll post some of the pics of the Pig and Bear in Zambia (more of the Bear obviously) shortly.

Balloon seems to have had some trouble understanding that Rodney is a Lincolnshire Rhino and therefore a fair bit smaller than his African cousins. The Pig meanwhile refused to get out of the bag in case wild Rhino eat small pigs.

Okay..... it's been a while since they featured in the blog. I'd like to say they have been deep deep undercover, but the truth is blogging for a Pig and a bear can be tiresome.

Anyhoo - they've just got back from a trip to South Africa. Now the bear loves seeing all the animals, but the Pig is sure something is going to eat him. Every year he gets worse.

Still at least they found a friend this year, a French / German duck. Who said the entente cordial is dead?