I can't wait!! I can NOT wait!! My bear fur is all trembling with excitement! Do you know why? I will tell you now:  I am going to be the official "Guard Bear" for the Kiosk for Easter! No, no …not a guard dog because of course I am a teddy bear not a dog.( but I don't have any snarly teeth to frighten off intruders, but  hmmm…thinking again I  do have a big smile which could make them smile too and run off forgetting why they were trespassing!) Well, you do need someone reliable to have the important position of guarding all the Easter chocolates and items that are bought for the Kiosk Easter Sale and to sell in the Kiosk after the Sale leading up to Easter. Well, you just never know who might decide to take a little uninvited visit to the Kiosk and gobble up some Easter eggs! You just can't be too wary these days you know!

Did I tell you the story about the time, when a very suspicious looking character decided to make a very unwanted entrance into the Kiosk one night? Well, it was very, very dark one evening,..except for some beautiful dazzling white stars up in the sky. ( Oh I do like star gazing!! Such a pretty sight to see these twinkling stars that come out at night. My friend Carla the Chorister bear who is the Choir Leader of the "Teddies Tremendously Sensational Singing Chatty Choir" (it is quite a long name for a Teddy choir isn't it!! But then they can keep singing for a long time without taking a breath and can hold onto the last note for a long time when singing so I suppose that it is quite appropriate to have a long name for their choir!) Oh, I forgot why I mentioned Carla…oh yes I remember, I was going to say that she sings "twinkle, twinkle little star so beautifully! She has a very lovely soprano voice. In fact she was asked to audition for the National Teddy Bears choir…but she felt that it would involve too much time travelling and she does have a family and well, she politely declined the very nice offer to audition. )  Back to the very ,very dark evening I was telling you about, I had just settled down in my comfy chair in the Kiosk and was just about to start snoozing , when I heard a strange rattling noise and the kiosk door knob started to turn. That made my little teddy eyes burst open widely in concern!  Boom…boom…bumpily -bump…that was the sound of my heart thumping so hard that if Dr. Teddy had taken my blood pressure the cuff around my paws would have burst off and the noise through his stethoscope would have sounded like a jet aeroplane taking off from the airport! "What do I do? What DO I do?!!" I thought to myself. Tough times need tough decisive actions so…my first thought was this: I grabbed a carton of full -cream milk (my thinking is that the full cream variety must be heavier than the skim milk variety!) and as this intruder took a few steps into the Kiosk, I dropped this milk carton onto his left foot! Then, I grabbed a jar of jam and dropped this jar onto his right foot! And then, just as he started to utter a little "ouch" I grabbed a jar of honey and threw it at the ground so that if he took another step he would get "stuck" in the sticky honey mess! Then, I reached out and got some little tubs of goulburn valley fruits, and some fruit in jelly tubs and "hurled" them at him! (I was going to open a packet of snowdrops/snowballs and throw these at him, but I thought that the coconut might get a bit messy for the Kiosk floor. And another option was to "pelt" the intruder with eggs from the fridge, but if I happened to tumble over whilst collecting thee eggs (I was feeling a little bit giddy with my blood pressure so high) I might end up with "egg on my own face" instead of his!)  I had in the back of my teddy mind as a last resort that I could perhaps scoop up into my paws some packets of tim tams and shortbread creams and sort of "whack" him over the head with them!  Oh, I do want to say that I really am not a vicious teddy. I just instinctively wanted to protect the Kiosk from intruders… and there was also the "little" matter that I didn't want to be kidnapped or more appropriately "bear-napped"!!  ( I wonder what the bear-nappers would ask for my ransom??!!)

I did feel just a tiny bit sorry for the trespasser, because he certainly left the Kiosk in quite a battered state!! I don't think that he will make the mistake of returning very soon..if at all.

But back to my upcoming job! Yes, I will be the official Guard-bear of all the Kiosk Easter items. This position is a great honour and I will definitely fulfill my duties to the best of my Teddy abilities. Of course though, the more people who come and buy these items, the less amount of items I will need to guard. So I invite everyone to come along to the Easter Sale and then to the Kiosk after the Sale Day and buy up their Easter items and cards…and lessen my guarding load of items I need to protect!!

Until next time,

I sign off and give you a Teddy Bear guarding salute,

           Mr. Kiosk-Ted Strath

                       Also simply known as "Ted"!!