We've all just spent a delightful weekend with friends down in Oxfordshire. Of course Pig and Bear came along, and enjoyed it as much as we did. In particular they liked playing with the toys of our friends little boy.

Spig found a pair of glasses, but threw them away when he realised that a) they were not tinted and b) he looked a walley in them.

Balloon was far happier with a fireman's helmet - this had to be prised off his head.

Balloon Bear went to Dubai at the end of last year accompanying me on business.

What he loved most (in fact the only thing he liked) was looking out of the window on the 33 floor onto what he is convinced was a model city with moving cars and everything. It seems the concept of scale eludes small bears.

It's been a good couple of days for Bears.

First we celebrated balloon Bear's birthday. In fact we were a week or so late, but the beauty of dealing with Pigs, Bears and Rodneys is none of them have a clue about days of the week, let alone dates in the year. They only know it's their birthday when we walk in with the cake singing "Happy Birthday".

Balloon was delighted - though a little disappointed we hadn't got him the huge gun he wants as a present.

Then yesterday it was Little Brown's turn for a treat - Steven Seagal in "Under Siege" on the TV. We were about to head off to bed when a little channel hopping stumbled across his all time favourite film.

LB knows every line and enacts the film scene by scene as Steven Seagal slots bad guys left right and centre. His "bestest bit" is the line "I also cook" - class!

The only downside is The Pig and Rod now want something - every day is a challenge with animals as needy as these!

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.

Some might say we spoil the Pig and Bear.

They've just been down to Twickenham again this weekend to see England play scotland. Needless to say the victory was appreciated by both. A strange occurance before the game though - a fox on the pich! Balloon wanted to take it home as a pet of course.



The dreadful news from Japan has affected all four of them. The top of the back of the sofa has been a popular place to sit all of a sudden.

The Pig was the first to react to the news reports, taking to the high ground, followed quickly by Rod, then the two bears. No matter how much we tell them Japan is an awfully long way away and that there are no Tsunamis in North Leicestershire they're taking no chances.

The Pig's fears may come home to roost though as Rodney will probably burrow his way into the Pigs sleeping spot tonight again seeking security.

WoW!!!

What a weekend the Pig and Bear have just had.

They've been to Twickenham to see England play Italy in the six nations and then on to Leeds to see Leicester Tigers play Leeds.

It all started early on Saturday morning when they were driven down to London. This in itself was a treat for two reasons. First the very generous chap who was taking us all out for the day has a very nice Mercedes. The Pig and the Bear aren't really into cars (unless of course it's a big truck with tinted windows etc in the case of the Pig or a formula one car in the case of the Bear) but in this case they made an exception as the car had Tvs in the back of the seats for the passengers in the back to watch.

Sorry the photo of them watching TV is a bit blurry - the car was moving and they were wriggling quite a lot.

The next highlight was witnessing a bit of serious road rage on London's North Circular. We were driving along when we had to pull out to get past two cars rather badly pulled over in the inside lane - sniffing an "axibump" the Pig was on full alert. We didn't see any damage to the vehicles but we did see one fella punch the other - who quickly bounced off the floor to his feet to commence the fight back - as we disappeared off up the road we left them slugging it out.

Needless to say had we been going anywhere else other than Twickenham the Pig would have made much more of a fuss about either stopping or turning around to get a better view.

So on to better things - Twickenham where 15 fellas slug it out with 15 other fellas.

Here's the Pig outside the stadium.

Twickenham has to be their next favourite place after Welford Road (home of the Leicester Tigers). The Pig was particularly taken with the pre-match show involving abseiling marines, whilst Balloon was interested to see what would happen if one of the ropes broke.

Balloon of course had to be kept well under control. We don't let him drink beer for obvious reasons - but that doesn't stop him trying.

You can see how he had to be grabbed by both legs to stop him taking a swig!

So Pigs and Bears were finally got under control and England went on to achieve a fine victory over Italy (though the boys were upset that Italian prop Martin Castrogiovani who plays for Tigers got a yellow card for being naughty).

The following day their weekend was made complete with a trip to Leeds to see Tigers play Leeds in the league. This wasn't so much fun as it was absolutely persisting down with rain - and Pigs and Bears don't like getting wet, so they had to spend most of the game well trussed up in a ruck-sack. Even so you could still here them cheering Tigers on. Nice to know they do somethings without falling out.

Their stories about cars with TVs, road rage punch ups, Twickenham and Leeds certainly made Little Brown and Rodney very envious - but sadly not quite enough to encourage them to leave the house next time.

We suspect Balloon Bear may have been moonlighting as a model for one of the Daily Telegraph's cartoonists...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/cartoon/?cartoon=8304101&cc=8306265

We have Bear problems...........

There's a programme on TV at the moment in which Michele Roux takes a group of young people and trys to teach them how to serve in a restaurant. It's a bit like "The Apprentice" for waiters.

Little Brown was unbearable (see what I did then ...) last night wanting to sack various contestants, and being powerless to do so taking it out on Pigs, Rodneys and other Bears who happened to be sitting within striking distance.

Balloon in particular received a nasty boot accross the living room, so severe in fact we had to step in and issue a full public warning to Little Brown. He's now under double secret probation - one more cheffy outburst and it's no cooking TV of any sort.

Of course he'll play dumb and pretend he has forgetten when he next loses it - or blame it on one of the others for doing a "Pooing" mime whenever there's melted chocolate shown in a recipe on TV. But last night he went too far - and he won't get away with it again.

Until next time.....

It's early days yet, but the Pig and Bear have launched a web site (OK they don't actually do any of it themselves as the Pig's trotters and Bear's paws are way to chuncky for a keyboard and , of course niether of them can read or write anyway - so we have to do it for them).

As yet we haven't bought a short form address for them, but you can see what we're doing here http://balloon.giving.officelive.com/default.aspx

2011 has started particularly well for Balloon Bear.

There has been a week of James Bond films on TV followed late at night by the last Test Match in the Ashes series between Australia and England. Now BB likes his cricket - he bats bowls catches every ball and loves to see Aussies getting beaten.

Last night Balloon Bear was singing with the best of the Barmy Army, the crazy group of travelling England fans who go to watch the team play all over the world - but especially Australia. His favourite song is the one which ends by repeating "Barmy Army" again and again - though he changes it to "Barmy Balloon Bear". Rather apt really.

Meanwhile last night was 12th night, so the Christmas tree came down. Rodney spent most of yesterday sat underneath it hoping to delay the inevitable, but we eventually managed to pack all the Christmas stuff away without further protests. We do suspect however that he has stashed some baubles away here and there and he definitely has a piece of tinsel pushed up his jumper.

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.

Balloon like any form of transport. It started with "boop boops" (trains), but now extends to any form of getting somewhere. He therefore loved going on the trams in Munich, waving (as you will know one of his other areas of expertise) to anyone and everyone.

The inhabitants of Munich must really like Bears, as no-one batted an eye! 

Whilst in the museum the boys found loads of things to do - here Balloon found a model balloon which took off when you pressed a button. He may need a little work on his paws now as they were red raw from pressing.

Still it kept him occupied and out of trouble for a while. 

It's been a while since we posted anything, and now when we do it's not the best of news.

The boys had to go in the wash today. Balloon Bear had got quite smelly and it was clearly time for a dunk. The Bears and the Pig hate going in the washy machine. Rod on the other hand thinks it's great - something like the rhino version of white water rafting at the fair ground.

As you can see from the pic they are pretty down cast after their wash - though they do smell a good deal better. 

The Pig came to live with us about 15 years ago. Before he had lived on the Boots small animal farm at their shop in Lincoln.

At first he lived in the car ( a Peugeot 205) which he thought was his. He came with us on holiday to France where we took pity on him one dark and stormy night and brought him indoors. We haven’t been able to get him to sleep in the car since – he seems to think the gap between the pillows on our bed is far more to his liking. Mind you he still thinks any money left in the car belongs to him.
Now the Pig goes everywhere we go. He even goes to work with Jane, though he doesn’t help much with this as he can’t read or write or count (no matter what he claims).

We got Balloon 14 years ago. He arrived in a balloon having been rescued from a show somewhere. He was born in Branston near Lincoln in the front room of a little cottage. It was all rather traumatic, as the balloon got very tight when the air was let out and it was a real struggle to free him from it. Balloon has never forgotten his origins however and always gets very excited whenever he sees a balloon.

As a small bear Balloon was very timid. He tended to be the one picked on by the others and showed no signs of being the bossy little so and so he has turned out to be in his latter years. Indeed so fainthearted was this little bear that he rarely went out and cringed even if his name was mentioned.

As he grew older he started to come out of himself – some might say a little too much as now there are no bounds to this bear’s cheek. Once he had grown out of being a cub he developed a total lack of sense – the words “no fear” was a slogan written around this bear!

We started taking the Bear to rugby matches around ten years ago, though he was a big fan well before that, having watched it on the TV. It is now just about his bestest thing , he thinks Welford Road is a Temple and that a trip to see the Tigers play is a religious experience. He wears an England rugby shirt with the number 8 on the back, homage to his hero Dean Richards who he has met, which was his proudest moment. Deano signed Balloon’s shirt, and we had to use a blowtorch to prise it off the little tinker’s back!

The Bear likes the Pig, but very rarely admits it. He is more likely to demonstrate his affection through a boot up the arse when the Pig isn’t expecting it. The fights that then develop are always explained as “axibumps” with the Bear steadfastly refusing to accept any blame whatsoever.

Originating from Yorkshire, Little Brown is an intelligent, articulate and (mostly) sensible bear. He is very clever and knows everything there is to know about cooking (at least he thinks he does). Can be a little spiky if he is prevented from watching cookery programmes.

In fact cooking is an obsession with this Bear. Cookery programmes on TV especially Gary Rhodes, Jamie Oliver and Keith Floyd are his favourites – and he loves to watch UK TV Food channel all day given half a chance.
Like the Pig and Bear he loves films with shooting, blowing things up etc etc. Needless to say, Steven Seagal in the Under Siege movies is his hero. (“I also cook”). His big plus point is that he can cope with a little more plot in a film than the other three, though we also suspect his greater intelligence makes him the most dangerous of the gang as we suspect he has learnt how to use the TV remote control.

Finally, what can we say about Rodney? A Lincolnshire Rhino, Rodney is a gentle soul who doesn’t know his own strength especially when practising scrumaging with the Pig, Balloon and Little Brown. He is the youngest member of the gang and the most timid. Rodney is devoted to the Pig and has, sadly, been led astray by him to some extent. The Pig often enlists Rodney’s help with surprise attacks on Balloon Bear – these can end in tears. He is always sorry after the event but will do it all over again when the Pig instigates another raid.

Rod loves planes and used to love watching the Red Arrows display team practice from his bedroom window. Rod wears a number 1 on his rugby shirt as he's very much a little prop forward. Like Little Brown though he never leaves the house - well occasionally he peeps his head out of the door if he hears an interesting helicopter.