Saturday 6 December 2008

One small step for mankind.........


Good morning! My friend, Weaver of Grass, has kindly allowed me to take over her blog for today. WoG and I are old friends and have been together for thirty five years woman and bear. I came to her from darkest Peru via Wolverhampton. We have had our ups and downs but dearly love each other despite this. Unfortunately my orange hat has gone missing owing to small humans being keen to wear my coat, hat and wellies when they were young enough to fit into them

So - hatless - I come to you today to proclaim a huge achievement to Beardom. We oldies are always quick to criticise the young - I do it myself from time to time. So I am doubly proud today to salute those four Spaceteddies. I take my hat off to them (well I would if I could find it).

For two hours and twenty minutes after being launched from the fens of East Anglia, those chaps, wearing specially designed space suits (year 8 Parkside and Coleridge Community Colleges), hovered thirty kms above the earth in a giant weather balloon.

Then they gently parachuted back to earth into a field near Ipswich, fifty miles from their launch site. Ed Moore,a third year student, said,"It went off smoothly and we retrieved the bears unhurt."

This is the world's first Bear only space flight which took off from Churchill College, Cambridge.

So can we please have three loud bloggie cheers for beardom everywhere: hip,hip.......; hip,hip.........; hip,hip........ Thank you for your time.
Signed: Paddington Bear.

13 comments:

Liz said...

Three Cheers for Paddington Bear!!!! Oh well done! I miss the Paddington Bear series..my girls would have loved you Paddington. I think I should start a campaign for you to come back onto the telly. I hope Weaver isn't out in the cold...

Lane Mathias said...

Hurrah for Paddington!

I was so in love with him as a child and I longed for one but my mother made a duffel coat for a teddy and I had to make do:-)

Have you read the new one?

Elizabeth said...

I was a little too old for Paddington and only know him as the station but he looks a very fine character.
Loved the discussion of writers rooms below.
I once lived in 2, Polstead Road where TE Lawrence wrote Seven Pillars of Wisdom in a little house in the garden.

Heather said...

Hello Paddington - lovely to see you again - and three hearty cheers for those space bears. Will you tell Weaver of Grass for me that a piece of calico tightly framed should work well for holding the photo in place while stitching. I stuck mine down to stop it slipping, and only used an artist's canvas because I had one handy and didn't want the bother of framing the piece.

Unknown said...

Oh how that brings back childhood memories of watchin Paddington getting the better of Mr Gruber!

Hip, hip, hoorah for the bear from Darkest Peru.

The Weaver of Grass said...

No madbush - weaver is still sitting by the fire - thinking!

The Weaver of Grass said...

Hi Lane. At least your old teddy would be snug in his new duffel.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Wow, Elizabeth! If that does not bring a muse and inspiration - living in a house where TE Lawrence lived - I don't know what will. I was brought up close to Cranwell in Lincolnshire, where TE Lawrence was in the air force - he was spoken about in that area as thought we were all related to him.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Thanks for the calico tip Heather.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Thanks for the three cheers Barbara.

Dominic Rivron said...

Those space bears - presumably they had The Right Stuffing :)

Bears have been in space before: for example, the French astronaut Claudie Haignere took one to the International Space Station. Has a bear been to the moon, I wonder?

Pamela Terry and Edward said...

Oh, Paddington, you are such a charmer! A most handsome bear indeed!


And yes, three cheers for the space travelers!

The Weaver of Grass said...

Message for Dominic from Paddington.

Like the joke about stuffing!

I take exception to your remark that bears have been in space before. Here we are speaking about brave, unaccompanied bears. When a husky dog goes to the Pole alone and unaccompanied we can say huskies have been to the Pole. The same applies to bears using my unique quality of bear-logic.