Roberta

This is my beautiful friend, Bobbie. It's short for Roberta, after the eldest of The Railway Children.

She is 2 and a half now and has been with me since she was 4 months old. 

She needed a bath!

Much blacker when she was very young.

With the lodger - still a pup in arms at 4 months.

Bobs is 7/8ths German Shepherd and 1/8 Labrador - her Great Grandfather's Labrador genes show mostly in her ears which need wind-speed or a very loud knock at the door for them to stand up.

This afternoon i took my Big camera with us to the park for the first time. My fears about taking the camera out are a combination of being mugged and being caught not knowing precisely how to use it properly. Also i'm still a bit shy with a camera. However, although i'm sure i could photograph the plants and insects in my garden, exclusively, forever, it's a bit of a waste of equipment.  

Bob had a lot of fun with a Lime branch.

Back at home, she was horrified to find that our latest stray cat had had his black and white mates round and chased one up the Birch tree before i could stop her.

He made it down later!

Yet another bear leaves the shop floor!

There were tearful scenes around the bear trunk yesterday as the corduroy bear waved goodbye to the others. He is on his way to Massachusetts to join the little knitted bear who is now called Eddie and having a lovely time in his new life in the New World.

With a cheery wink and an Elvis Presley karate move, he was ready to leave.

There's a sneak preview in these photos of two new bears. I've been working on re-designing the classic bear paw shape so that the hockey stick becomes more downturned for Ursine verisimilitude. The old-fashioned, Steiff-style bears which i have been attempting to emulate are lovely but i think teddy-bears should  resemble real bears even more closely. I suppose i knew teddys before i knew about real bears (the first real bears i came across were probably from illustrations in a Ladybird copy of Goldilocks), and there could be a case for real bears and teddy bears being cousins of the same genus. However, besides personally finding the protuberant muzzled, jointed teds more attractive than the flat-faced, paralyzed, amputee type (absolutely no offence whatsoever meant to humans with these conditions), i think that it can never to be too early to teach children (or remind adults) about endangered species, why they are endangered (perhaps keeping baiting descriptions from the the under-5's) and generally making the link between the bears in their cots to the relationships we have with real animals as we grow up.

  New bears showing here soon!

  And some painting if i ever get a moment!!

Many, many thanks and good wishes to Anja from Massachusetts who is my very valuable and delightful customer!