Please Look After This Bear

Location: London, England
Address:  Paddington Station, Praed Street
Date: September 2015
Website:  www.networkrail.co.uk

  Michael Bond wrote A Bear Called Paddington in 1958.  In the book a bear was found at Paddington Station in London, England.  The bear was from Peru and loved marmalade.  He was very polite and wore a big hat and carried a suitcase.  He was found by the Brown family with a sign that said "Please look after this bear."  They decided to do just that.

   When we visited England in 2015 we also found a bear at Paddington Station.  He was bronze and wore a big hat and was seated on a suitcase.  He also had a sign that said "Please look after this bear."

   Paddington bear was named after the station where he was found.  He has appeared in many of Michael Bond's books through the years.  Paddington is much loved in England and around the world.  In 2000 this statue was placed at Paddington in his honour.

  Paddington dolls are also very popular.  Paddington bear is known to innocently get into mischief.  The doll above was getting into some mischief in Hamley's toy store on Regent Street.  Hamley's is the oldest toy store in the world.

  In 2014 a Paddington movie was made.  Paddington had already had a stop-motion television series that was popular in the 70's.  The new movie featured a computer generated bear.

  To promote the film various Paddingtons were placed around London on what was called The Pawprint Trail.  This Paddington above is sort of a blue velvet looking one.

  Paddington is such a sweet character and will be thought of fondly for many years to come.  We suggest if you ever find yourself at Paddington Station please look out for this bear. Thank you.

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Map of Our World
Paddington Bear Statue
Paddington Station
Hamley's

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Post # 222

Jacka Bakery

Location: Plymouth, England 
Address:  38 Southside Street
Date: Sept 2015
Website:  www.facebook.com/JackaBakery

  Jacka Bakery in Plymouth, England claims to be the oldest commercially working bakery in all of Great Britain.  It dates back to 1597 and has been baking since at least 1610.  That is over 400 years of history.

   Up the street from the bakery is the Plymouth Gin Distillery.  It is only half as old as the bakery and has operated since 1793.  It was formerly Black Friars Distillery.

 

  The bakery has seen many owner changes through the centuries.  It used to be the Fone's Bakery for many years.  One thing that has not changed is the brick oven at the back of the bakery.  Above are two photos of the oven.  The top one is from 2015 and the bottom one from 2007.  The oven is cast with this description.

Bird

Bricklayer & Oven Builder

Bennets Row Blackfriers Road 

  Next door to Jacka Bakery is Harbourside Fish & Chips where we also enjoyed a meal while visiting Plymouth.  At Jacka's we ate traditional Cornish pasties.   These baked pastries were filled with beef, potatoes, turnip and onions.  These days there are several variations available. 

  We also took home some biscuits to enjoy later.  It is rumoured that Jacka Bakery baked biscuits for the Pilgrim's voyage on the Mayflower in 1620.   The Mayflower set sail from Plymouth harbour just a short walk away from the bakery.   It took the Mayflower almost two months to complete her journey.  We hope Jacka's baked them a lot of biscuits.

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Map of Our World
Jacka Bakery , Harbourside Fish & Chips
Plymouth Gin Distillery , Mayflower Steps

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Post # 216

Kingsman & Huntsman

Location: London, England
Address: 11 Saville Row
Date: August 2015
Website: www.huntsmansavilerow.com

  Saville Row has been the place for bespoke tailoring in London since the early 1800s.  Bespoke tailoring is a custom made suit that is cut to perfectly fit the individual.  Usually you buy a suit and they will take it in or let it out to make it fit better.  Bespoke is the high end of tailoring.  We visited one of the shops on a drizzly evening as we headed out for dinner.  We visited a shop called Huntsman, not for a good fitting suit, but for a different reason altogether.

  The Hunstman shop at 11 Seville Row made an appearance in the movie Kingsman: The Secret Service.  In the movie the tailor shop is called Kingsman and houses a secret spy headquarters filled with gadgets and hidden rooms.  Harry Hart (Colin Firth) is a spy who wants to train a young lad called Eggsy (Taron Egerton) and brings him to the tailor shop.  Hunstman provided not just the location, but the suits for the fictional Kingsman.  Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Cane also get to dress in style as part of the cast.  Real life clients include the Royal family, Clark Gable, David Bowie and Ronald Reagan.

  The shop was closed when we visited or we may have attempted to venture inside.  We didn't see any obvious spy activity, except for the car (above) that turned on with no driver inside.  What will they think of next? 

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Map of Our World
Huntsman & Sons

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Post # 178

The Safety Dance

Location: West Kington, England
Address: Drifton Hill
Date: September 2015
Website: www.menwithouthats.com

  "We can go where we want to. A place where they will never find."  It may seem like an unlikely place for Canadian band Men Without Hats to film their Safety Dance video, but thanks to some internet research and a very informative blog, we paid a visit to this special place.

  West Kington is a small village that is located north of Bath and east of Bristol.  We were traveling along the M4 highway and had a plan mapped out before we left.  We made a few wrong turns but eventually reached our first sheep filled destination.

  Ebbdown Farm is in the background of the opening scenes of the video.  We don't recall seeing any sheep in the video, but when we visited they were everywhere.  If we walked close to a fence we would hear some baa-ing as they ran away on the other side.  The farm is located just a short drive from West Kington.

  We drove our car up to a cattle guard at the gate of the farm.  Cattle guards also work at preventing sheep from crossing them as they have similar feet. Anyway, enough about the sheep let's get back to the video locations. 

  The video starts off with lead singer Ivan running through a field with a little court jester.  They go past this wall and then run down to the road that leads to the farm.

  It is here that they are joined by a dancing girl and come to a crossroads.  You can't see the other road as it is hidden behind the hill and tree, but they choose the one on the left.  The action then moves to West Kington.

   The jester and girl dance along beside Ivan as he walks past some houses.  The home above still had the same red post box in front of it.

  Next we come across the gate where they do The Safety Dance.  The utility pole in the background helped us know that this was the place.  To do The Safety Dance you use both of your arms.  Your left arm goes right over your head and your right arm goes left across your waist in a jerky motion.  Now look at your hands.  If you are doing it right it will appear like you just formed an S.

  A crowd of people dressed in costumes head across the little bridge and march down the street.  They were all dressed real neat from their hats to their feet.  They would be heading towards the photographer in the photo above.

  They all seem to be going to a May Day festival which takes place in the courtyard of this building.  There are people dressed as barnyard animals (but not sheep), there is a Punch & Judy puppet show and lots of dancing.  We can dance!

  A group of people are dancing around a May pole as Ivan continues to sing.  The party continues for the rest of the video.  The Safety Dance came out in 1983 and was one of the more memorable videos and songs from the 80's.  Thirty years ago we were wondering what those strange people in the video were doing.  Today we know first hand exactly where they did it, but we still have no idea what The Safety Dance really is.  Oh well! They can dance if they want to.

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Map of Our World
Ebbdown Farm , West Kington

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Post # 177

The Blue Door (Notting Hill)

Location: London, England
Address: 280 Westbourne Park Rd.
Date: September 2015
Website: www.visitlondon.com

  There is a famous film location which can be found on Westbourne Park Road in London, England.  It is located in the Notting Hill area and is from a film of the same name.  In Notting Hill, William (Hugh Grant) is a bookstore owner who lives in a flat with a blue painted door.  He lives there with his roommate Spike (Rhys Ifrans).  In the movie the door and pillars in the photo above are all painted blue.  At least when we arrived to check out this location the door was still blue.
  In the film, William meets movie star Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) in his bookstore and they start a relationship.  Things don't work out until suddenly one day Anna is there at the blue door.  She is looking for a place to hide out since some nude photos of her have surfaced in the press.  Will agrees to let her stay and they spend the night together.  The next morning the press has figured out where Anna is hiding and when Will goes to open the front door he is met with the flash of many cameras.  Anna comes to the door and is horrified to realize they know she is there.  Despite receiving a warning from William, Spike also ventures out in his underwear.  He loves all the attention and strikes a few poses before returning inside very pleased with himself.
  We played the part of the paparazzi and snapped a few photos ourselves in order to remember these movie moments.

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Map of Our World
The Blue Door

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Post # 176

The Ritz London

Location: London, England
Address: 150 Piccadily Street
Date: August 2015
Website: www.theritzlondon.com

  The Ritz Hotel in London, England is a high end hotel which opened in 1906.  The term, "Puttin' on the Ritz" was inspired by the hotel and refers to surrounding yourself with luxury.  While it wasn't quite in our budget to stay or dine at The Ritz, we did walk past it on our way to dine elsewhere.
 

  We enjoyed a nice dinner at Rextail which was only a short walk away. 

  The Ritz Hotel is located on Piccadilly Street which is home to an interesting variety of architecture.  The building above is one of the Ritz's across the street neighbours.

  The hotel has hosted members of high society along with actors and actresses who would come to indulge and socialize.  In the movie Notting Hill, Julia Roberts plays a popular Hollywood actress named Anna.  She meets William (Hugh Grant) in the bookstore that he owns.  She invites him to come and visit her at her Ritz Hotel suite.  To William's surprise he is there along with a group of reporters ready to interview Anna about her latest sci-fi film.  After pretending to be a reporter from Horse & Hound magazine, William and Anna finally go out and spend a nice evening together.  

  They go out for dinner again and then return to The Ritz.  As they walk along the corridor above, Anna invites Will up to her room.  Unfortunately, her American boyfriend is there and Will leaves the hotel confused and sad.

If you're blue and you don't know where to go to.  Why don't you go where fashion sits.?

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Map of Our World
The Ritz Hotel
Rextail

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Post # 175

Bunny Rabbit Hare

1. Lop-Eared Rabbit
2. Bugs Bunny
3. Flemish Giant Rabbit
4. Arctic Hare
5. Lionhead Rabbit
6. Rabbit Balloon
7. Tortoise & Hare
8. Cute Bunnies
9. Chocolate Bunnies
10. Eastern Cottontail

  This Easter weekend we thought it would be a good time to take a look at our top 10 bunny encounters.  Here they are in no particular order.

1 ) Lop-Eared Rabbit

A friend of ours used to care for a very cute lop-eared bunny.  A lop-eared bunny is a bunny whose long ears hang (we guess you could say lop) down.  You will notice all of the other bunnies in this blog post have ears that stand straight up or sit back on top of their heads. 

2)  Bugs Bunny

One of the all-time favourite bunnies is Bugs Bunny from the Looney Tunes cartoons.  He is among a short list of animated characters to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The outline drawing of Bugs Bunny (above) was in the Warner Brothers Studio's Museum.

3)  Flemish Giant Rabbit

From Bugs Bunny we go to Big Bunny.  A Flemish giant rabbit can weigh up to 10 kg and grow to about 30 inches long.  It is one of the largest domesticated rabbits.  The bunny above was at the Toronto Zoo for a short time and shared an enclosure with the wombats and wallabies.  Perhaps it had outgrown its previous living space.

4)  Arctic Hare

While we were in Churchill, Manitoba we spotted this hare just across the road from our lodge.  While it may not be the smartest thing to do in polar bear territory at night, we headed outside to try and get a closer look.  Luckily, he stood still long enough for us to get the picture above.  It took us some time to determine if this was an arctic hare or a snowshoe hare as both inhabit Churchill. We read about one having bigger feet or ears than the other.  Some reports said that one has bigger eyes or fluffier fur.  We made our determination by the black on the ears.  As far as we can tell arctic hares (like this one) have black just on the top tip of their ears while snowshoe hares have a black edge that may cover the tip, but runs further along the ear as well.

5)  Lionhead Rabbit

A lionhead rabbit is bred to have a mane around its face like a lion.  They end up looking like little balls of fur with ears. We wondered how they can even see where they are hopping.  When taking pictures, the bunny below did flash us a look from beneath all that fur just to let us know he was in there. The lionhead above is from Prickly Ball Farm and the lionhead below is from Far Enough Farm.

6)  Rabbit Balloon

Artist Jeff Koons had a piece of his art appear in Toronto's Nuit Blanche 2009.  It was simply named Rabbit Balloon.  It featured a giant shiny silver bunny that was floating inside the Eaton Centre.  This bunny also once floated in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2007.

7)  Tortoise & Hare

In Boston's Copley Square is a sculpture of a tortoise and a hare.  It was installed as a tribute to runner's of the famous Boston Marathon. It is based on the popular fable of The Tortoise & the Hare. The fable tells the story of a rabbit who was so confident in his ability to outrun the tortoise that during a race he ran ahead and took a nap.  While he napped the tortoise passed by heading for the finish line.  The hare finally awoke and tried to catch up, but it was too late.

8)  Cute Bunnies

We think that all rabbits are cute.  There is something special about a tiny bunny that you can pick up and hold in your hands while it sits quietly twitching its little nose.  These cuties are from the Toronto Zoo kid's section and from Jungle Cat World.

9)  Chocolate Bunnies

Chocolate shaped like eggs is good.  Chocolate shaped like bunnies is good.  This bunny above is a box from Teuscher Chocolates and hides a chocolate truffle in its belly.  We like chocolate.

10) Eastern Cottontail

The one rabbit that we have encountered the most is the eastern cottontail.  Actually we have eaten more chocolate bunnies and watched more Bugs Bunny cartoons than we have had encounters with eastern cottontails.  Let's try that again.  The eastern cottontail is the wild rabbit that we have encountered the most.  Sometimes when you least expect it you look out into the yard and there is one munching away on something.  Here comes Peter Cottontail hopping down the bunny trail!

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Map of Our World
Toronto Zoo (Australasia Pavilion) , Toronto Zoo (Kids Zoo) , Jungle Cat World Wildlife Park , Prickly Ball Farm , Lazy Bear Lodge , Far Enough Farm
Teuscher Toronto
Tortoise & Hare , Eaton Centre
Hollywood Walk of Fame

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Post # 171