Karen has been saying for a while now that she would like to get some photographs of me with squirrels.  Obviously I was somewhat apprehensive about this as they sound a bit springy like spaniels (I had a bad experience with a spaniel that resulted in me needing several stitches in my tummy).  Anyway, I got put into the bag and carried off to a rather lovely place in central Bristol called Brandon Hill.  On arrival there I played on the swings for a while, which helped take my mind off squirrels for a while….After ten minutes or so we wandered on up the hill to the place where the squirrels live.  Karen had brought along some squirrel bait, which turned out to be walnuts.  She sat me down by a tree with walnuts on my lap.  I was worried, but it turned out that the squirrels were apprehensive about me too, and wouldn’t approach me to collect the tasty walnuts.Karen decided it might be better for me to sit with her, as the Brandon Hill squirrels are not afraid of humans, so we moved and I sat by Karen’s feet waiting for a squirrel.Within minutes a friendly squirrel appeared.  He was a bit too friendly and decided to  investigate me. Karen decided that now the squirrel had made friends with me, she could probably get a photo of just me with it.  I kept smiling but felt quite nervous inside.  There wasn’t really anything to worry about though…Squirrel Nutkin and me got along just fine…….until a very big dog came along the path and frightened him away.

There is big tower at Brandon Hill (built over 100 years ago to commemorate the discovery of Newfoundland over 500 years ago).  I nearly fell in the waterfall while my human took this photo, and she nearly fell in the pond!

I decided to climb the tower, which is a long way up for a small bear with short legs….When I was nearly at the top of the tower I peered over the wall to enable my humans to take a photograph.Then I carried on right up to the top, where there was a great view of Bristol – you can see Bristol University Tower just above my head.

It was quite cold at the top of the tower, and by the time I’d got to the bottom again I was quite tired and cold.  I was a very a happy bear when my humans then took me to a nearby restaurant for coffee to warm me up.I was put back in the bag while my humans walked  home, then had a wonderful surprise when they decided to treat me to pizza on the way home for being such a brave bear modelling with the squirrels.