It is nearly here, it IS nearly here!! I can't wait!  It is "the" most biggest, bestest sporting event on the whole of the Bears sporting calendar of the year! Every little, big and in-between sized bear always rings the date of this sporting event  around with  a big bright red circle when they are putting important dates on their  teddy calendars! Of course, teddy doctor appointments are written on their calendars first and then birthdays, and then special morning or afternoon tea invitations BUT after these important pieces of info are written on, then this sporting event is ringed around with bright red ink. Would you like know what this big sporting event is? You probably already know because it has made front, back and middle page news on the Herald-teddy-Sun newspaper for the last week! But…just in case you forgot to get the latest teddy newspaper delivered to your home, I will tell you what the sporting event is! It is… the Premiership Grand Final game of footy between  the "Teddy Merry Markers" and the "Bear  Handy Handballers" footy teams!! Yay! Yay!! Cheer! Cheer!!  It is really, really great because I am a "two-way winner" because I have teddy friends who are playing in both teams, so whichever teams wins  is great because I am barracking for both teams to win!! It would be soooo good if the match turned out to be a draw! That result had happened before you know, because if the scores are level at full-time, no extra time is played. I have my footy scarf, beanie, pullover and socks in my teddy closet, all ready for me to put them on when I am getting ready to go to the game!

Did you know that both teams needed to come and do their training here at Strathalan last week?!! It was a HUGE big secret you know! They came and went whilst it was still dark evening time. Because all of the teddies in the 2 teams are great friends, they decided to do their footy training together here. They couldn't train on the usual training field because there were such huge gusts of wind last week that…the goal posts were blown down! They had to call in the teddy worksafe bears to investigate what happened, and it was declared an unsafe area until further investigations could take place. We would not want any little or big teddies with big bumps on their teddy heads if the goal posts again fell down and happened to hit them on the head! It would cause more than a little headache I would think!! It would also require a special bear panadol tablet to be swallowed every 4 hours to help the bears cope with the pain, and what if these teddies had trouble swallowing tablets! And also they would need to have lots of bowls of homemade chicken and vegetable soup to help them feel better. Oh, I suppose really this type of soup is more appropriate if you have a cold, but I still think that if you have a teddy form of head ache it would help quite a lot too!!

Anyway, the field was declared "off limits" to the teddy footy players so they gave me a call on my bear mobile phone , and in the nicest most courteous voice they enquired if  it would be at all possible if they could train here at Strathalan? I gave the "green light" to their request immediately!

They came by bus, and did a lot of "kick-to-kicks" of the footballs outside in the kiosk courtyard. (It is okay, I was not going to let them kick the footballs right inside the actual Kiosk! I could just imagine the picture in my head if footballs went flying around inside and hit all the Kiosk products! There would be broken biscuits everywhere, chocolate blocks scattered on the floor and there would be quite a lot of "crying over spilt long-life milk" cartons!!)  I did wonder though what to give these teddies for supper? Footy training makes you hungry you know! Well, I thought and thought, and puzzled and puzzled… and in the end I just could not make up my mind!  I decided to give my teddy friend Mr. Oliver from Oxford a phone call and ask him what food he thought was the most appropriate. He comes from the university town of Oxford and so he must be quite clever. He came up with the most cleverest, best solution!! He said:" Why don't you give them food based on the initial letters of the word :footy!" That was a great idea, I thought! Sooo…. I got out special blue coloured china plates and placed them on the tables outside the café. On these plates I put:* Freddo frogs, *Orange cream biscuits, *Oreo biscuits *Tim tams and lemon Tarts and *little tubs of frozen Yoghurt.  The teddies all headed very, very quickly to the eating table once their training had finished and the next thing I knew there wasn't even a crumb left on the plates!! They all must have enjoyed their supper!

I had better not talk to you any longer now or else I may get a sore throat and I need to have a good "cheering voice" for when the footy final is on!

Until next time,

           Cheer on your favourite teddy footballer and barrack with a loud voice!  Please support the teddy umpires too because they do a great job!

Your friend, Mr. Kiosk-Ted Strath

                Also simply known as "Ted"!!