As mentioned in my previous post, I've spent much of this summer with my husband Jon on our little narrowboat, making a 600 mile journey down to Godalming in Surrey and back to Stoke-on-Trent. Along the way (and along the Wey...) I've been making plenty of notes for possible future investigations for my boat-dwelling amateur detective, Daphne Randall, as well as jotting down ideas for a possible return to the Solent Welfare Rights Project to catch up with the team as they get to grips with Universal Credit.
However, my human heroes are in danger of being upstaged by a cuddly toy! The entirely true story of where and how he came to join the crew can be read - from the bear's perspective - in our local Inland Waterways Association magazine (page 18 - 20). You'll find it here:
https://issuu.com/waterwaysassoc/docs/knobsticks_autumn_2017
Sonning is such a cute character that I can't resist writing more stories about him, so there is no shortage of material from our travels to share with the IWA. The plan is to use his adventures to explain aspects of narrow-boating, canal history and waterways wildlife to younger readers. They'll also have plenty of photos of the small bear to illustrate them, as I often posed him admiring the passing landscape or even trying his hand - or rather, paw - at steering the boat.
Since he was found wearing only a striped Breton top, somewhat under-dressed for boating, I set to work making him some appropriate outfits.
Clever cutting up of an old pair of jeans - already being cannibalised to repair another pair of mine - gave him dungarees and a hat, while a 'Bag for Life' rather appropriately provided him with a life-jacket!
The jeans also gave him a boiler-suit while a kind friend's gift of felt squares enabled me to make him a little duffle coat as autumn saw us back on the Trent. He also has waterproofs - made from a Sainsbury's bag and sticky tape, pyjamas and, for his visit to Nottingham, a Robin Hood costume!
Since getting to Stoke, Sonning has met a little friend (called Hanley), who needs a new outfit himself if there aren't to be copy write issues. Hanley's current mission is to show Sonning why Stoke-on-Trent deserves to be City of Culture 2021, so I'll be posting their adventures together, on and off the waterways, on this blog.
Look out for #WhereIsTheBear and the #BearsBackingTheBid on Twitter too!
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