Ask the bear

What do you do in the winter?

As the temperature gets colder and the nights longer, I would like to dispel a commonly-held myth about bears’ winter behaviour: studies of individuals living in the wild have discovered that while they do stock up on food in the autumn and sleep for a large part of the winter, their body temperature does not drop nearly so far as animals who truly hibernate… I got all that from the internet!

But bears living in parts of the world with less severe winter temperatures (such as here in Britain) take a more relaxed approach to the season. Stocking up on food would seem to be the only sensible response to shortening day length (just in case) but bears in this country do not go into full hibernation either….in fact we settle down for the longer winter nights with a generous supply of bedding material (natural fibres eg. wool, alpaca etc. are so much better!) and send out for pizza when the weather gets chilly.

We hope you’re enjoying the winter so far, and if you are looking to top up your supplies of natural fibres to get you through the season, then Born to Knit is the place to come!

How are you getting on with the iPad?

I am starting to get the hang of it now – it helps that we’ve downloaded a special big type keyboard just for me, which gets round the problem of paws with non-opposable thumbs.

Unfortunately knitting seems to need a bit more dexterity – the one-off ‘Learn to Knit Workshop for Bears’ which I went on recently was not an unqualified success – although there were lots of jelly babies and cake, which went a long way to restoring a positive overall experience! But all the people we have on our workshops seem to get the idea much more quickly and have a lovely time, so don’t let my experience put you off.

Going back to the iPad… I found out that you can even watch TV and films on it. But if you haven’t seen ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’ yet, don’t bother – I was looking forward to brushing up on some technical knowhow, but it was most disappointing. I could only find one app on the subject too but it’s in French and includes trout as well (not nearly so tasty and far too chewy).

Typing ‘picnic’ into Google images was much more rewarding.

How are you coping with the virus?

Apparently I’m in the very low risk category for catching the virus, but it pays to be careful, and it’s nice to feel I’m playing my part. A very kind friend noticed that I didn’t have a mask, so she made one specially for me! It’s made-to-measure and has little flags all over it to make it lovely and summery…

And, almost as exciting as my lovely mask, was the envelope it came in! “Willoughby (Proprietor), Born to Knit” – that’s me! I’ve never been called a proprietor before, but I like the sound of it… and it’s definitely a step up from ‘Customer Relations Manager’. I might need to have some new business cards made…

Being in the ‘very low risk’ category makes me the ideal bear to front the ‘Born to Knit emergency supplies’ email service, and generally to keep the whole thing running smoothly.

Do contact me if you need more yarn, or needles – we’re happy to send things off by post… but Heather is possibly is a better bet if you get stuck with a pattern.

The shop is now open again four days a week (Wednesday – Saturday) from 10.30am – 3.30pm, so do come and pay us a visit.