I am looking forward to it! I AM looking forward to it! I am sooo looking forward to it! Teddy cartwheels, teddy handstands, hop, skip and jumps… I am so excited!! You can ask me what I am sooo looking forward to if you would like to!! If you do I will tell you! I can't not tell you can I?!! I am looking muchly forward to… the new 2014 teddy calendar where my teddy friends have been asked to be the models for each month! They are very excited about their teddy photo modeling shoot for the particular month that they have been asked to be the model for! There is sooo much teddy chattering, giggling and happy smiles on their faces! They have been practising giving the biggest teddy grins that they can!!  There has been many exclamations of "cheese cheese'" to help them practise their smiling mode! I was asked to be a model but I very politely and graciously declined such a very nice offer, telling the "teddy talent scouts" and "teddy model seeker-outers" that I am a very shy Kiosk Teddy and I would feel a bit nervous about taking part. And I never look very good when I have my photo taken. I would very much prefer to share in the happiness and excitement of my other teddy bears who are going to be the models. Would you like to know about the teddies that will be posing for each month? Well, then I will tell you because I just can't wait to tell you all about my teddy friends!

 For January, my teddy friend Janelle the jelly liker is going to be the model! She is going to be lying in a hammock with palm trees either side and will have a spoon in her hand, dipping it into a tub of red jelly! Right beside her will be another tub but this time it will contain orange flavoured jelly. But … wait for the climax of the picture… on the table beside her is ANOTHER tub of jelly, this time flavoured green but it also contains a chocolate freddo frog in it!! That sounds great doesn't it!

For February, Frederick the Fruiterer is the star teddy! All his friends just call him Fred though. Fred grows very delicious apples, peaches, plums, nectarines and pears! They all taste so very delicious, and have a nice fruity fresh aroma to them! Fred is going to be snapped by the photographer's camera wearing his favourite blue overalls and with lots and lots of buckets filled to the brim with all the varieties of fruits that he grows! All the people who are working on the calendar are very happy too, because Fred has very kindly allowed them all to take whatever of these fruits that they like home with them to make up into fruit salads for their families. How yummy!

Miss Marion, the Milk coffee, Marie and Milk arrowroot biscuit munching teddy is the model for March!! She is going to have her picture taken sitting on a comfortable soft arm chair, with a sliver tray on her lap which contains a very flowery patterned tea cup with a little china plate holding one each of her favorite biscuits. Marion is very pleased because after the photo is taken, she is allowed to eat these biscuits! She told me confidentially that she thinks that she may dunk them in the tea as that is her favorite way of eating them!

Andy the acrobatic teddy is such a bright and energetic young teddy! He never stops still. Well perhaps I should rephrase that… he does stop for eating meals and to shout out  a very friendly "hello" to anyone he sees, but he does like doing all sorts of gymnastic feats and you may even find him walking backwards  with his hands on the ground and his feet up in the air! With him being the teddy designated for April, the photographer may find it a tiny bit hard to catch him with him always being on the move but the aim is for the photo to be taken of him somewhere right at the moment he is midway through the air, wearing a bright red cape! I am still not sure why the calendar people want him wearing a red cape, but that was their request so us teddies are always happy to do what is required!

Motor bike Melissa is the "cool" black leather jacket wearing teddy for the month of May! She looks so very trendy and happy when she leaps onto her motor bike and roars off down the street riding it, with her little teddy ears up in the air and the red ribbons that she ties in her hair are floating along in the wind. Melissa and her motor bike are quite a funny combination, because her bike makes such loud revving noises and really makes its presence felt by sight and sound when Melissa rides it on the road, but Melissa herself has such a very quiet voice! She is quite a shy little teddy, but once she puts on her "leather jacket uniform" she just feels quite at home and happy! It will be such a great photo shoot of Melissa sitting on her friendly motor bike.

Jeremy the music Jamboree teddy is very delighted to be the teddy in focus for June and July! Yes, he is going to be the teddy that is involved in TWO months! You may like to know why he has the privilege of being involved in 2 months? I would like to tell you why! Jeremy organises lots of bear music jamborees, where musical teddies come from all over the country with their musical instruments, and play lots of different styles of songs. The jamborees are very happy, cheery and fun occasions of music, singing and dancing to the music. Because of the wide variety of musical instruments that are played at these jamborees, the calendar people want to showcase some of the musical instruments in June and some more in July. There are so many, many instruments that make nice noises you know!!  Perhaps there will be trumpets, trombones, saxophones, flutes, oboes, mandolins, banjos and guitars in one month, and the next month there may be pianos, organs, drums, harps, clarinets, cymbals, horns, violins and triangles. What a noise it will be if all these instruments are played by teddies at the one time!!

Do you know who the model is for August? It is my friend Andrea the Artist teddy! She paints very beautiful pictures you know! She paints landscapes, still lifes, portraits of other teddies, scenes…but never abstract varieties. Abstract pictures are just not her "teddy bear cup of tea"! It is not that she doesn't like them, and she respects well other painters who do paint them, but it is just an art style that she avoids doing! She always wears colourful clothes…not that her outfits always began so full of colour but the colour has arisen from the times when she has accidentally had spots of paint land on her clothes and not on her art apron smock! She just leaves the colour stains there, just as a reminder of how she enjoys painting! I am so very much looking forward to seeing Andrea's photo in the calendar with her wearing these bright colourful clothes, her paintbrush in her hand, and a half-painted masterpiece sitting on the easel. It is all very exciting!!

Swimmer Sally is a great choice for the September teddy, don't you think?! Sally won gold at the recent Teddy bear Olympics in the 10 metre freestyle, backstroke and breast stroke races, and silver in the 10 metre butterfly. (Sandra who is another swimmer teddy just beat her at the finish by a teddy fingernail!! It was so exciting and so close! We thought that it may have been a draw, but the teddy officials went to the video footage and discovered that Sandra's fingernail just made the end of the pool before Sally's did.) Sally enjoys being in the water more that being out of it I think! When she goes to the beach, she always takes her favourite beach towel which has a big picture of a teddy on it. Swimming makes her sooo hungry so she often pops in to visit me at the Kiosk and enjoy having some chocolate or biscuits from the Kiosk shelves. I think that she will wear her pretty shade of pink bathers for the photo shoot. It is going to be taking place at the local teddy pool, and  she is going to be standing up on the starting blocks looking as if she is about to dive into the water!

Have you heard of Oswald the Oscar-winning teddy? He won his Oscar with his famous role as  a guest artist actor in one of the Muppets Movies! I don't know which one of the Muppets movies and Oswald can't remember either but… he does have the Oscar on the kitchen sill of his teddy kitchen to prove it! And he is very proud of winning it! He is the October teddy! The photo of him will show him proudly clutching his Oscar in one hand and giving a friendly teddy wave to everyone with the other hand. He is going to be standing on bright blue coloured carpet… because there is a shortage of red carpet! Apparently there was a plumber doing some maintenance work in the teddy carpet store and he hit the wrong pipes and the result was a big burst water main and the water exploded all over the red carpet supplies and they were ruined! The carpet shop is now needing to order in more red carpet supplies! Oswald is quite a celebrity in the teddy A, B, C listing social scene!

Nellie is turning ninety in November and so will be a nonagenarian, and what better way to celebrate this very special occasion than to have her being the teddy lady for November with a picture of her enjoying blowing out lots of candles on a huge birthday cake!! The creamy sponge cake is going to be very prettily decorated, with pink icing and lots of little icing flowers and the name Nellie and numerals 90 written on the top. And… the bestest ever part of it is that us teddies all get to have a slice of this delicious looking yummy birthday cake to take home to eat for supper! Howe exciting for Nellie! She is going to wear her pearls for the photo shoot and pretty pink and white ribbons in her hair.

Danielle likes dates and makes the most delicious date loaves which she slices up and butters to serve for afternoon tea when she has visitors. She also always brings big plates of date loaf to all our teddy bear picnics. Danielle is the December teddy! She is going to be pictured with a whole date loaf in a baking tin in her hands ( with her wearing oven gloves of course because we wouldn't want little teddies to see the photo and think that they could touch very hot baking pans with their own little unprotected paws! Then there would be very sore paws of little teddies!) Also , there will be a nice table with a lovely white lace tablecloth on it, and on it will be plates of her buttered date loaf slices. It will be such a yummy looking end to the calendar year!

  What a great teddy calendar it will be certainly be! I just can't wait to see it!

Until next time,

           Enjoy each day of the rest of this year of 2013!    

  Your friend, Mr. Kiosk-Ted Strath

                       Also simply known as "Ted"!!