Well, it might be a surprise to you but it's true! What is true, you ask me? Well, what is true is that even though we have lots of fur as skin, us teddies get very cold in this Wintery cold weather! And we get very shivery!! It is not a happy sight to see a little teddy who is shivering and looks a bit blue even though they may usually be grey or brown coloured! In fact, grey coloured teddies turn even more greyer looking when they are cold or sick! We also get "ted-bumps", which is a much worse-rer feeing than getting goosebumps! Hmmm…I have never had goosebumps so perhaps I am not qualified to know what it is like to have goosebumps as opposed to having ted-bumps, but anyway the presence of either means you are feeling very chilly! My very nice friends Helena the hot water bottle helpful distributer and Penny the patchwork quilt provider are very kind to me though when they know that Winter weather has arrived. Helena dropped in a bright red hot water bottle just for me the other day, and Penny very thoughtfully stitched together some patchwork squares and made a lovely quilt for me to wrap around my shoulders and body to keep me warm through the cold nights. Oh, I really must tell you more about this patchwork quilt. It is the most beautifullest quilt you could ever imagine! I think "beautifullest" is a word but perhaps it isn't? Well, my friend Mr. Oliver from Oxford teddy bear is having a lend of my Oxford dictionary at the moment so I can't check if it is a correct word or not, but anyway it sounds good to me! Anyway, this quilt, as I said before, is made up of lots of various squares. Now, what is so special is that it is called a "Strathalan Quilt", and every square is a different colour, to represent a different area where the lovely Residents of Strathalan live! And the colours are what the flowers are coloured of the names.  There are yellow squares, to represent the very nice people who live in Acacia (Pell and Braidhill roads),  because acacia (wattle) is coloured yellow. There are  pink squares for all the wonderful Upper and Lower Boronia Residents, squares that are half red/half orange for brilliant  Banksia people, the beautiful Grevillea people are there in the quilt with a watermelon/raspberry colour,  We don't want to miss out on our very special  Meleleuca friends who make their appearance with green squares,  the Hibiscus lovelies have their own ¼ yellow, ¼ pink, ¼ orange, ¼ red squares,  wonderful Waratah  and delightful Darwinia  people have 2 different shades of red, there are lavender coloured squares to remember the lovely Lavender ladies who used to live there but have now moved to live in other homes in Strathalan , and last but definitely NOT least are the marvellous people of Magnolia who  are seen in the quilt with white squares. All floral names and the colours of the quilt are just what the real life flowers are coloured. This very, very special quilt just has to make me be the most cosiest, warmest, snuggliest teddy bear in the whole wide world (well, at least in Australia!)  to have all these reminders of special people wrapped around me!!

 Oh, but I haven't told you about the eventful night that I experienced a little while ago!! It was a very cold night, and the stars were very "starry", hmmm… I suppose stars are "starry" and it doesn't really have to be cold for stars to appear in the sky because many nights when I have felt sooo very warm in the Summertime I have crept outside at nightime and gazed on the beauty of the starlit skies and enjoyed the nightime breeze after a hot day. But still this night I am talking to you about really was cold and it really was starry! Anyway, on this cold and starry night…did I ever tell you about Astrid the Astronomer bear? He likes studying the stars, and planets and the moon and all things space-related. He says that despite what people say, the moon is NOT really made of cheese! That means you don't have to worry if you make yourself a cheese sandwich that it may have been a part of the moon that you are eating!! Astrid also told me that if I feel a bit giddy or dizzy sometimes, it is quite understandable because our Earth planet is rotating and spinning and twisting and turning continually on it's axis and whilst orbiting around the sun!! Oh, I feel quite wobbly on my feet right now just thinking about it! Astrid told me though to never ever look straight at the sun because it can cause your eyes to go quite weird and can damage them.  I am always a careful teddy,  and so am very careful to shield my eyes with sunglasses in the midst of Summertime.

 Anyway, back to the cold and starry night! I needed to wrap the lovely quilt around me to keep me warm, and also filled up with hot water the hot water bottle that Helena thoughtfully gave me. I boiled up some water, carefully poured it into the hot water bottle's neck, and then rested it against me, and quickly fell off into a pleasant dreams sleep. Zzzz …but then I was quite abruptly awoken when I got a big burst of cold water soaking me and my special quilt! Yes, there was a hole in my hot water bottle, and water was spilling out everywhere…and I was getting cold! I jumped to attention and quickly got the "hot" but now "cold" water bottle to the sink and emptied out any water that was left. It was then very quickly throw in the bin! I then had to get my quilt and try to dry it out! It had got a bit water- stained though! Later that day, I was having a little chat with Helena and she was sooo apologetic about the hole in the hot water bottle! She put her thinking cap on, and tried to work out why a hole would have been in the hot water bottle?  Helena's brain was puzzling and thinking and she was scrunching up her eyes to concentrate a little bit more! She then exclaimed in a loud teddy voice: "Aha! I know why!!" She then proceeded to explain the chief cause of the hole! Helena has a daughter called Hillary teddy bear. Hillary is a delightful little teddy girl, and recently it was her birthday. Helena threw a little birthday party for her, which she could invite some of her little friends to. One of the party games was "pin the tail on the donkey". Apparently, the little girls were blindfolded and had a thumbtack in their hands…and well there was a bundle of hot water bottles near where the donkey picture was and somehow some of the tacks may have ended up piercing the hot water bottle rather than the donkey! Helena apologized profusely, and I didn't mind at all because I know that the little ones would have been having such fun at the party and being blindfolded they wouldn't have even seen what they had accidentally done!

It is okay now though because kind Helena has bought me a nice new hot water bottle and Oswald the Optometrist teddy who has excellent eye sight has minutely looked at every tiny area of the bottle and it is "teddy bear optometrist's certified" that there are no holes at all in the hot water bottle! And I have a life-time guarantee warranty card to prove it!

 Until next time,

             Keep warm, wrap a quilt around you and always check that there are no holes in your hot water bottle!

                         Your friend, Mr. Kiosk-Ted Strath

                       Also simply known as "Ted"!!