Paraphrasing one of my forefathers, the great writer Giuseppe Bearmasi di Lambearusa, I think that if we want to stay as we are, we have to change.

This is a very wise and fundamental principle I have decided to follow at this stage of my life.

I’d like thanking all the people who have paid attention to the adventures and vicissitudes of the only two living members of the Bears family, my dear nephew Frimpong the travelling Bear and myself, your devoted friend Violet Gwendolyn Bear.

It has been very rewarding for us to have this exchange with so many of you during several years. Now the time of a change has come, in order to allow us to stay the same.

It’s not any paradox. Let me take advantage of your patience and explain my idea.

My beloved nephew , Frimpong Bear, who has kept his professional engagement for many years, travelling all over the world, is at present in Denmark, early next year he will come back from his trip and he will join me , here in my cottage, in our so dear Bearshire.

We have to discuss about some important changes in our life, but I can already anticipate that it’s practically decided that Frimpong will hand in his resignation from the charge of only official travelling bear.

I’m getting older and older and also Frimpong is now a mature bear, so we think it’s a good decision to spend more time together at a more relaxed pace.

As for me, I have been offered to write a book and I have been working hard on this project for many months, this is the main reason for neglecting , only apparently, all of you and for not posting anything in my diary.

It doesn’t mean you won’t have any further news from the Bear family, on the opposite! But things will change, as it’s right they do.

This is the most suitable day to mark a difference between and old period and a new one.

I wish all of you a New Year full of enjoyable and constructive changes, which will allow you to remain the people you like to be.

Visit our pages here, every now and then, if you have nothing better to do.

It’s possible you’ll find news about the future projects of the Bear family members.

Yours devotedly

Violet Gwendolyn Bear

I had started thinking that daily life in Bearhampton (the peaceful and lovely little village of Bearshire, where I live) had become a little too monotonous and people tended to lose motivation in remaining active and fit.

So I decided to do something for the well-being of my community and I found an empty farmhouse near by which seemed to me very suitable for my project.

After some work of renovation the Violet’s Saloon was created!

Welcome to the opening night!

As some of you might remember, I have always liked dancing, all kind of dances are ideal to keep my elderly body active and dancing is the best gymnastic I know.

When I was young and I travelled, even though never as much as my beloved nephew Frimpong Bear, I had spent a certain time in USA and I had…hum…a loving friendship with a certain Bill, who claimed to be a great buffalo hunter, while in reality he was not able to catch anything at all and it was me the one who tried to teach him to shoot at least a little enough to be engaged later in a circus, but this is another story…

Anyhow, during my, hum, friendship with Bill I got familiar with a specific kind of saloon dance and I have decided to take good advantage of my past experience and to show all of you that, in spite of my age, I’m still slender enough to perform.

If you are by chance in Bearshire, you are welcome to visit my saloon, beer is free.

Here I am again. Did anyone miss me?

I’m afraid of the answer.

One should never ask similar questions, which imply possibly frustrating answers….

Anyway I’m home and my convalescence is going on smoothly.

Today I’d like thanking a dear Irish friend for the lovely card she sent me.

I think the value of little discrete gestures is enormous.

As you know I’m English and they say that between Englishmen and Irishmen there is more place for conflicts than for agreements.

I’m glad to be the exception which has not any intention to confirm the rule.

By the way some of the ancestors of Bear family were Irish warriors, as my nephew Frimpong has recently discovered.

But I’m wandering from the subject…It’s a feature of elderly people, I’m afraid.

I meant to thank Miss C. for the thoughtful card and to tell her that people who love good books are all part of a privilege universe, wherever they are from.

My beloved nephew, Frimpong Bear and I, your humble truly Violet Gwendolyn Bear,

are glad to have this opportunity to brighten up your hectic Christmas week

with our musical talents.

Please, put your volume on.

Frimpong always manage to find the time to visit me at Christmas,

even though he can never stay for a long time,

as you know he’s a professional traveller

and he keeps on visiting different places all over the world.

But today he’s here and my old heart if filled with joy.

By the way, do you know how people who are afraid of Santa Claus are called?

Claustrophobic.

I think always over about Christmas every year and as Christmas is always the same also my thought are more or less always the same…

Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it.

Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their kids pay for it.

But this is, obviously another story.

Now, my dear readers of my diary let us sing for you and to wish you all the best.

Autumn might be occasionally gloomy here in Bearshire, but I like its wild and austere beauty.

I’m a little too old to jog, then I have found always a bit bizarre those people who jog all concentrated with the headphones on , quite isolated from the world they are in from a screen of heavy music.

I like listening to the sounds which surround me while I’m outdoors.

As I was telling you above, I’m definitely too old to jog, but not too old for riding!

My old friend Liz, who has a very important position here in UK, adores horses too and she still rides, when she has a chance, even though she’s not younger than me...

But this, of course, is another story.

I know I tend to neglect to climb up to my attic too often...

You see at my age there are days when you feel you would need a good dose of oil for your gears, since every movement produces worrying creaking and pangs.

But today I decided to come up here to try to tidy all this mess and also because there is always an unexpected find, when I rummage among all the stuff I have collected for years.

My nephew Frimpong Bear whom maybe you know, has invited me to get rid of all these old and dusty items once and for all and transform the attic into an astronomic observatory ( you know, I live in a very secluded part of Bearshire and there is not any light pollution here at night), but I cannot make up my mind.

So I’m trying to clean a little around here, and then, as soon as the attic will have a more presentable look, I’ll go to relax downstairs with a well deserved cup of tea.

My friend Stevie (one of my neighbours) had half promised to come to help me today, but then he decided instead to head off to the Lake District.

Ah..... men!