My friend Mr. Oliver bear is the bestest footy tipster in the whole wide world! Well, perhaps not the the whole wide world, because in other countries, football means soccer not footy, but footy means footy here in Australia, and soccer means soccer, but then there is also rugby league that is called footy and so is rugby union and.... Oh! I have such a big teddy headache that I don't know what I am thinking because I am sooooo confused! Footy just means AFL to me!   
       Anyway, Mr. Oliver goes to the gym every Wednesday night to get him ready for his "Friday Flop". That is the day when he is dropped from a height onto the Herald Sun page where the tipsters pick their teams for the round. Whichever person's face his teddy paw or teddy nose falls on, that is his tips for the week! He is such a clever teddy! As he is falling onto the page, he selects the tipster whose tips that he wants for that week! But... he has to go to the gym so as he is fit for the "flop" and can land bear-gracefully! He invited me to go with him and his teddy friends last week!
      It was sooooo funny! I decided to try the treadmill! I got onto the treadmill machine... the rolling foot/paw platform underneath started rotating, and my teddy paws could not keep up! My teddy paws were furiously trying to keeping up and I was puffing and panting, and getting redder and redder ( figuratively not literally because I am a brown teddy that can't turn red!) and I was getting tireder and tireder as the minutes went on! But... I had Greta the Gym teddy come to my rescue! She saw my plight, and rushed over as quick as you could say: " Here I come, ready or not!" ( but I really was ready to be rescued from the treadmill! ) She turned the machine off and I collapsed in a tired mess on the floor! It had stopped abruptly and I got catapulted onto the ground!
   So, I then decided to try doing some weight lifting! I flexed my teddy arm muscles, took a deep breath ( and nearly choked from inhaling a deep breath! My nose went all funny! ) and went to lift the barbells! I couldn't do it! I tried and tried so hard to lift them...then all of a sudden they decided that they wanted to inspect by foot paws a bit more closer... and landed quite abruptly onto my poor sore foot! Hmm... I had better rephrase that last comment! I did NOT have a sore foot until the barbell fell on it! Then, I most definitely felt ouchy! I did a hop, step and jump, and I wasn't even training for the triple jump event that is being held at the upcoming Commonwealth Games!
    Next on my gym agenda was trying the trampoline ! I wasn't sure how my sore foot would cope with that! I was just about to "give it a go" , when I then saw Mr. Oliver start jumping on the trampoline, and doing some complicated manoeuvres in his jumping! He looked soooo very expert at it... until he jumped a bit too high, hit his head on the ceiling with quite a not nice "thud " , and the next thing I knew was that he had landed teddy body flat down in the middle of the trampoline, and looked like he had fallen asleep! He was not suffering from concussion... he just couldn't remember his name, he thought that the prime minister was Harold Holt, and he thought that I had two heads! Hmm.... I did think that I only had one head, but I could have been mistaken? I will have to check in the mirror sometime!
      We decided that a snack and a nice cuppa of tea was needed to steady our bear nerves. Twinings tea of course! And.... a nice salad sandwich, filled with tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, beetroot , pineapple, carrot, coleslaw, potato salad,NO cucumber, some mayo, and a dollop of cream cheese! We have big teddy mouths to eat these sandwiches! We decided after our meal to just head back to the Kiosk and do some disco dancing to the music from our stereo player, which was a bit more "funner"! We bopped and jived to the music, even in the midst of our soreness from our injured bodies!
    Well, I best do some handstands now, so as I continue to keep fit! Until next time, Be very wary about attending a gym! It is a health hazard!
  Your friend, Kiosk Ted Strath