Bart Bear's Blog

People all around the world are wearing masks when they are away from home, in the attempt to avoid catching or spreading the dreaded COVID. I have been feeling left out and slightly abandoned. I had no mask and the Oldies just may be wrong when they claim that small bears are immune to the virus. My Aunty Noellen has fixed that. She made me these two Bart-size masks. One celebrates my favourite science, astronomy, and the other one celebrates my favourite place, Hawaii. I can now travel out with the Oldies in complete safety. Thank you Aunty Noellen, the masks are great.

Isn't it strange how my fur looks different colours in different light. I really am the colour in the first image. The pale colour in the second one is just the light, not because I am scared of catching COVID.

Labels: Canberra, friends

It's a fact that you meet some people on cruises that stay your friends forever after. The two in these pictures are Dianna and Michael. We met them because Michael came to the first of Dad's lectures and we clicked. All through the cruise we enjoyed their company, evidently it was mutual. The top photo was taken on the pier at Bora Bora. A bit embarrassing for a small bear. Note the size of our ship anchored in the lagoon. This was another port where the ship was too big to tie up at the wharf and we used lifeboats to shuttle between ship and shore. Dianna and Michael live in Wollongong, about 3 hours away from us, but sometimes we meet up down on the south coast somewhere. The bottom photo was at Ulladulla and we are waiting for our fish and chips to arrive. It really is true, cruising shows you new places and makes you new friends.

Labels: boats, cruising, friends

Last weekend we went down to Melbourne for a mini-break. You know, just to get away from cold Canberra for a while. Guess what? Melbourne was cold and blowy as well. At least it was different and we got to check out some of the shops that we don't have in Canberra. One that I like is Haigh's Chocolates. These guys have shops in most of the state capitals, but not in the national one yet, so we tend to stock up whenever we can. I managed to get away from the Oldies and clamber among the shelves looking for the best choccies. There were actually some smaller bears on the shelves, tied to bundles of chocolate. They are hoping that somebody will buy them for someone special. I hope they get to go to good homes. On Saturday night we met up with Mum's work friend, who looks after the reception for the Melbourne branch of the department that Mum looks after the Canberra reception for. Do you think that they look a little bit the same?? Anyhow, I now have two new friends, Lesley and Andy. Flying home on Sunday we went over the ski fields. Australia doesn't have any really high mountains, so the snow fields are small compared to other countries. It has been a good snow season so far and that snow would have had lots of skiers and boarders on it. I don't think that I would like snow, but am game to give it a try. The blurry photo is because the aircraft window had fine ice crystals over it.

Labels: friends, Melbourne

Guess what was in the mail today? A parcel addressed to ME. From Unka Ray and Aunty Libby! I could hardly wait to get it home from our post box and get it open. After a session with a sharp knife, cutting through lots of sticky tape, I got the box open. There was a card inside with a message for me, and a big packet of special cookies - ginger ANZAC biscuits. As far as I know you can only get these biccies from one place in Australia, the Ginger Factory at Yandina in Queensland. We visited there when we were staying with Unka Ray and Aunty Libby after Easter and tried some of the goodies available there. Dad liked the ginger gelato (no surprise there), Mum liked the ginger marmalade, and all of us really liked these biccies. Since we got back to Canberra Mum has dragged Dad and I all over the place looking for them. I can tell you that although some shops here sell the ginger marmalade none of them sells the biccies. Well, I figure that since my name was on the parcel and the card is written to me, the Oldies are going to have to be on their best behaviour if they want some of these special ANZACs. Do visit the Ginger Factory when you are travelling north from Brisbane. There is lots of good stuff there.

Labels: friends

In earlier posts you met the alter-egos of the Oldies, Sheik Rattlenroll and Princess Neferonnasunday (that's them on the right of the picture, just in case you are confused). Well, at the barbecue evening of the astronomy conference in Brisbane they were joined by two more representatives of Egyptian astronomy. Unka Ray and Aunty Libby have been to Egypt too and they decided to join the Oldies as their alter-egos. Unka Ray is Pharaoh Potolomey the Last and Aunty Libby is Princess Neferataloss. They caused quite a stir at the barbie and, surprisingly, some of the attendees couldn't work out what Egypt had to do with astronomy. Just in case you are wondering as well, Alexandria in Egypt was the main centre of all sciences in classical times. One of the most important astronomical books of all time was written there, Ptolomey's Almagest. You should also remember that the Arabic scientists were the ones who kept the sciences alive during the European Dark Ages. Indeed, most of the brighter stars have Arabic names. The presence of the Pharaoh, the Sheik and the Princesses at the barbie was a tribute to these important ancient astronomers.

Labels: astronomy, Brisbane, Egypt, friends, Queensland

Meet my new friends, Unka Ray and Aunty Libby. Unka Ray is an astronomer, like the Oldies, and they meet up at conferences. They all get on together very well, and are actually more mischievous that this small bear is supposed to be. Our stay with them after the Brisbane conference was an occasion of many coffee shops, cafes, ressertorunts (I still can't spell restaurant) and much wine. Where am I in the group photo? Well, who do you think took it? Now, one of the new friend's I met was Unka Ray's small droid, R2D2. This little guy talks so fast that his words come out as whistles and beeps. He actually talks faster than Mum. Evidently he comes from somewhere out in space. I had to spend ages teaching him about Earth, with the help of Unka Ray's spinning globe. There are more like him out there and I have asked Mum to track them down and invite one to live with us. Here's hoping.

Labels: astronomy, Brisbane, friends, Hervey Bay, Queensland

Well, it's over for another year. Christmas and New Year are completed, and what seemed like an unending round of visits and parties has stopped. Mum is back at work (for a little while; she retires soon) and Dad is starting in on all the projects that have been neglected for the past month. I am trying to get over my bear-hangover. I mostly blame Unka Mark for it. At least this morning I was able to look at myself in the mirror again. Still a bit glassy-eyed, but that's normal for small bears. Actually, if you ask me, I think I look fine. Now to find out where I left the bearoplane and off to terrorize insects.

Labels: Christmas, family, friends

Last week I turned 8 years old. That's not bad going for a small bear. Actually, Mum says that it's a miracle that I have survived so long, given some of the mischief that I get into. We had a special birthday party on Sunday. My Oldies, Aunty Enid and Unka Barry and their small bear Rufus, took me out for lunch on the "Southern Cross" boat that cruises Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin. As you know, I have been on lots of boats and know how the controls work, so I showed Rufus how to steer the boat away from the dock. Then we settled down at our table near the window for lunch and great views of the city. Of course there were presents. I scored my very own garden gnome, a cute birthday micro-bear, shampoo to prevent hair loss, and a pile of choccies (that's chocolates in Australian). The only thing that I couldn't understand was that the crew and the rest of the passengers thought it a bit strange to see four Oldies celebrating a small bear's birthday. Sometimes I wonder about people.

Labels: Canberra, family, friends

Meet two of my best beading buddies. These are Julie and George and they run a shop called the Bead Barn. You can find just about any sort of bead in their shop, so Mum and I spend a lot of time out there getting our vital supplies. We take Dad along to carry the shopping basket. If we can't find the particular beads we want Julie or George go straight to where the critters are hiding and get them for us. Mum learns a lot about beading techniques from these two, and then she teaches me. I love to climb about among the strings of beads on the wall. You can get right up to the top if you are careful. Of course you have to watch out for the camera because the Oldies think it is funny to get pictures like this one where they claim that the label means that I am like the beads I am hanging on to, just semi-precious.

Labels: beads, Canberra, climbing, friends

Gardens are great places to rest and relax. Mum has turned our courtyard into a garden where the plants are all in pots. This is so she can move them around and change the look of the garden whenever she gets tired of the way it looks. That happens too often for Dad, who does the lifting and moving. Anyhow, I like the look of it no matter how it is arranged, specially when the flowers are blooming. One of the coolest places on a warm day is sitting in a flower pot where the soil is cool and damp, with a bunch of flowers overhead making shade. I learned about this from a neighbourhood cat, who adopted our courtyard for a while. The drawback is that Mum doesn't like me to get damp and dirty so I have to pick the pot very carefully. There are some interesting things mixed in among the flowerpots. You can see a wizard reading a book to a small dragon off to the left of my resting pot. And there is a family of small bears sitting in the shade of another pot full of orange flowers. They seem to be rather shy and don't say much. Everyone should have a small garden or at least a few pots of pretty flowers.

Labels: Canberra, friends, gardens

Last night we went over to Unka Mark and Aunty Vicki's for dinner. It was semi-final night for the Aussie Rules footy season and Unka Mark's team, St KFC was playing a team of Hawks. (Dad notes: For those overseas readers not familiar with Australian Football and the teams involved, St KFC is Bart's interpretation of St Kilda Football Club and the Hawks are the Hawthorn team). Unka Mark and his home mascots invited me to watch the game with them, and fitted me into a St KFC beanie. The game was a disaster. St KFC started fine and then went from good to totally useless. The Hawks totally thrashed them. I guess that the worst thing that can happen for a team of any sort is to have me barracking for them, they always lose, just remember what happened to the cricket match we went to last year when the dreaded P**ms thrashed the mighty and up-to-then unbeaten Aussie team. Anyhow, I learned a lot about the rules of AFL by listening to Unka Mark' comments about the referees and I met a couple of new friends, the St KFC team bear clone (whose name I forget) and Cyclops, the one-eyed St KFC supporter. They wandered off after the game muttering things about next season. Unka Mark, Dad and I went out onto the balcony and played "toss the bear"until Mum stopped us.

Labels: family, friends

The Bear Clan has a new member. Mum arrived home from work yesterday with this cutesy little guy sitting in MY car seat. I was not amused and started to kick the stuffing out of him. Mum was not amused. She separated us and told me his story. Turns out that this is a special bear, almost as special as Scruffy and me. He is one of the family of bears made for Daffodil Day, and his job is to help get funds for cancer research. Cancer is a really horrible disease that attacks people and animals (but not small bears) and lots of money is needed to help scientists find cures. Daffodil Day is the biggest fund-raising event in the southern hemisphere. This year it is on Friday this week. You can find out more about it on the Cancer Council web at http://www.daffodilday.com.au/. Please support these guys. There is probably not a family in the world that hasn't lost somebody to cancer. Just by bringing one of these cute small bears into your home, or by buying any of the Daffodil Day stuff, or just by making a donation, you can help stop cancer. So what about the interloper in my house? Well, it turns out that he is really a nice little fellow and the clan like him. His name is Daffyd. Dad says that he probably has Welsh ancestry (the bear that is, not the Dad). I took him around and showed him all my special things; the Sphinx that lets me ride him sometimes, Mum's beading table where I showed him how to bend and cut things with pliers, Dad's aeroplane room where we spent hours clambering up the shelves while I showed him the ones that I helped make, and my computer where I typed this post for him. Maybe your home needs a Daffyd as well, cancer research sure needs the money.

Labels: aircraft, beads, family, friends

No doubt about it, there are some strange critters imported into this house. This one really takes the cake (except that cows don't normally eat cake). She appeared on Friday afternoon. When I first saw her I thought she was just a funny-looking cow with an outsize tail. What's the natural reaction of small bears to something like this? That's right, they sneak up and pull the tail to see why it's so different. What a surprise! When you grab the tail of this cow she opens her mouth, moos and shines a light out of her mouth. She is a torch! You can probably guess who bought her into our house. Just think; who has this thing about cows and gadgets and would find a mooing, cow-shaped torch totally irresistible? Yep, this is Mum's latest cow-thing, something that will spread confusion and mirth at future astronomy nights. She is also my latest friend.

Labels: friends

Easter is a time when some strange friends come to visit for a while. Things like rabbits or bilbys carrying baskets full of eggs. They scatter chocolate crumbs and wrapping paper all over Mum's clean table. They stay around for a day or so and then disappear almost overnight and I don't see them again for a year. My favourite visitor this year was this cute little one. She was obviously too young to remember her name because she had a big label tied around her neck to let people know her name was "Cadbury". She must have had an uncle like my Unka Paddy because she had a nice vest like the ones he makes me. While she was with us she had to stay in the fridge between conversations. I guess that makes her a really cool chick.

Labels: friends

Here is a Very Important Person. She is my friend Tenele and she is the one who has arranged our BIG trip overseas. She has managed to link together tours in the UK, Egypt, France, Dubai and Singapore and got all the tickets and accommodation and everything. She is a real genius and cute as well. Today Mum and I picked up the very last thing needed for our trip. This is the tickets for the Eurostar train that will zip us from London to Paris at 300 km/hr. I am looking forward to that! Tenele has done such a great job for us that we surprised her with a big box of choccies, and helped her eat some of them. Only a week to go now and we are off to the other side of the world. Dad is certain that we won't fall off, but I am a bit worried.

Labels: Canberra, friends, trips