When a bear is lost, and found..

My daughter has a bear. He is a special bear that she has had since she was small. He was bought for her by my parents. He has a tummy that you can heat in the microwave, so he can warm you with snuggles in winter. He is a Hug-me-Better Bear and for no reason I can ascertain, he is called Catcher.

Catcher lives on the bed with all the other bears and cuddly toys,  dd has never been one to carry a "snuggly" or a toy everywhere, but Catcher has pride of place, he is there at night always, he is special.

One early summer night dd called to me

"Mummy, where's Catcher?" A question to strike fear into many a parent, where is my special toy...

Catcher was lost.

We searched the bedroom, we talked about where she had seen him last, had he been to a sleepover? the grandma's house? Had he been downstairs? Or in the garden?

He was nowhere to be found. We read the lovely book 'Tatty ratty' a perfect and highly recommended read for anyone that has (or may in the future) lose a loved toy.

Tatty ratty has an adventure on his way home, Dd and I talked about what we though Catcher was up to, what was he doing.

I bought a second bear from the same range, I hid him and planned 'finding' him ... but in my heart I knew he was just different enough for her to notice. Eventually I introduced him as Catcher's cousin. He was named Snuggles, and we waited, but Catcher did not return.

Six months passed and Catcher was still missed. We found a third bear of the same type in a charity shop and a still sad DD insisted we 'save' him. He was named Padlock (after the bear in the Mr Gum and the Dancing Bear story by Andy Stanton) and now Snuggles and Padlock sat on the bed, sadly watching the door for the return of Catcher, but he didn't come back.

Then one day I saw a black version of the now much talked about bear! Neither of us had seen a black Hug-Me-Better bear before, he seemed very special, maybe he could heal some of the hurt that missing Catcher caused? And so he was bought and he came home too, Panther sat with the others, on a silent bear vigil.

Winter came. I went up to the loft to get down the winter weight duvet for DD...

And there, snuggled down in the middle of it was Catcher! He had hidden in the loft for a year. Now he is back on the bed. With his new crew. Like the A Team of bears.

Has your child ever lost a toy? What did you do to help them cope and did you ever find the toy again?

Some top tips for bear safety : 

• Take a photo (a nice clear one from all sides) of your toy before it goes missing! You never know when you will need to tell someone what it looks like - store the pic online for easy access if away from home.
• Label your bear in some way
• If you lose your bear, use online services to help - something like LostTeddyBear

Sworn Secret - Book Review

Remember those freaks and weirdos  authors I went to the pub with on Saturday?

Well, I know this will be a surprise, what with them being authors and all, but they have written some books! And I have read some of them, so I am going to review some of them! All set?

Then let us begin.  

Book, the first.

Amanda looking worridly at a banana

I have been chatting to Amanda Jennings on twitter for a while. I don't recall exactly how we met but I do remember we got into terrible trouble, and fits of the giggles when we accidentally trolled a well known blogger. The more we apologised and tried to explain the worse it became. While we cried laughing I think he blocked us both. We are still very contrite amused by it all.

Any way - Amanda wrote a book, she sent me a copy and so it felt churlish not to read it. Just kidding! I was desperatly keen!

The book is called Sworn Secret. It's a YA (Young Adult) novel, suitable for that awkward stage between childrens books and grown up books - and lets be honest, that's about where I am. I am not yet 50 and far from grown up.

The book starts with a death, and there is a lot of descriptive writing about how the mother copes with the loss of her teenage daughter. I cried. I didn't just cry a bit, I sobbed, each thing that hit the mother in the story, hit me. I have a teen daughter. It hurts to even think about losing her. Each crazy thing the mother does, each bitter family row...well you get the idea, I sobbed and sobbed, my eyes looked like the provebial 'piss holes in snow'. I threatened Amanda that if things didn't cheer up I would do bad things to her (possibly with a banana).

Luckily for her by the second half of the book things were looking up, now I could identify with the young love, relive my teens, sex in sheds, stolen kisses and quiet hand holding.

I can't tell you the secret, you'll need to read the book for yourself. But it's a moving book. Bring tissues.

Readability score 4.5/5
Kelly Kettle Rating (assumed, as I didn't actually test it) 3

Sworn Secret is currently £5.75 on Amazon Uk and £6.39 at Waterstones

Posted for a linky ....

Remember

I remember the fallen.

 I think of the struggle and pain of individual men and women fighting all over the world. 

And I don't like it. 

The remembering of the war, the great war, the war to end all wars, was to ensure it never happens again. We are not doing very well: but still I remember. This year as always I shall be silent at 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month and think of the dead. I shall pray that sometime in the future the dead we remember will not be recent dead but soldiers from long in the past. Pray that eventually we will come to our senses and stop killing each other.

Last night I got out of bed and padded into the tiny room we call the library...

I went into the box room (grandly titled 'The Library' due to it's being floor to ceiling shelved and filled with books) because one of my author friends(?) heroes(?) crushes (?) all of those(?) @AndyStantonTM had asked a question about grammar in the George Orwell novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and I knew I had a copy and could check.

I checked and then of course I lay in bed and read a little, and found myself thinking of the recent riots (which I have trouble sorting in my mind, are people rioting for *more* state involvement in their lives?) when I read this...

Ignorance is Strength

Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other --
.

'Julia, are you awake?' said Winston.

'Yes, my love, I'm listening. Go on. It's marvellous.'

He continued reading:



. The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim -- for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives -- is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal. Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new Middle group splits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over again. Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims. It would be an exaggeration to say that throughout history there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer. From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters.


I went to bed sad, I'm still sad. Sorry folks, what sort of crappy blog post is this! I'd ask for your money back if I were you.

If you want to read more, the entire novel is online here for free

Do we need a silence?

Every year, once a year, we have silence, quiet, hush.
We say it is to remember the dead, the lost, the harmed.
Some say it glorifies war, horror, pain.
Some say it is boring, useless, unimportant.

Today the sky is filled with clouds, rain, tears
and again we will stand, sit, wait
for the two minutes, the 120 seconds, the pause;
and find a gap in our busy lives, our work, our family
a time we can remember, think, consider

but will we?

In a short 2 minutes what will you do?

Wordless Wednesday