Yippee!! It's Friday night…and that means it's Pancake Parlour night!! Every Friday night the very kindly and hospitable people at the Pancake Parlour eagerly invite and await my teddy friends and myself coming to dine on pancakes at their restaurant. Sometimes the pancake dishes are savoury, sometimes the pancake dishes are sweet… but always they are delicious!! Sometimes we are given the official description of being "guinea bears" (rather than "guinea pigs!") of new menu items.  It really is a lovely sight to see, when all of us teddies march in the VERY wide restaurant doors, side-by-side and arm-in-arm... and are met very enthusiastically by cheers and happy smiles on the faces of the Pancake Parlours owners and lots of the patrons/customers that are already seated around tables. (We have a sneaky feeling that the owners may even advertise "us bears" as being there each Friday to attract people to eat their meals that day. What with the economy the way it is, and everyone being careful how they spend their money, and perhaps there are less eating out at restaurants, and the  'global financial crisis', well…you have to do something to attract business you know!! And if us teddies can attract other customers (and get a free ,tasty and delicious meal in lovely surroundings thrown in) it is our delightful duty to step up to the mark and come each Friday!!)

  I won't even mention about "that" time when I cooked pancakes in the Kiosk one day…well perhaps I will tell you! But, you must promise to not tell anyone else because…well, I'm a little bit embarrassed because I got out an electric frypan, just happened to open up some self raising flour, sugar and milk from the shelf, and grabbed an egg from the fridge. I made my pancake batter up very nicely and dolloped some batter in blobs on the frying pan. Everything was working so well up until this time. The batter had a good dropping consistency and was starting to "bubble" in the middle on the pan, meaning that it was time to flip it up and over to the other side. Hmmm… it appears I had eaten too much Dick Smith Bush Food breakfast cereal for breakfast that morning and didn't know my own strength, because I flipped the pancake, and sadly to say it landed on the kiosk roof with a big thud! Oh! Oh! What could I do?!!  I can't really leave a pancake sitting up on the top of the kiosk roof!! What a strange sight that would be! As each Kiosk customer came in to the shop, they would each get a bit of a sore neck as they tilted  their neck to see this pancake…and it would look "quite peculiar" to see such a strange shaped object on the roof! Okay, next step, was to call up my bear buddies on my bear mobilephone, and ask them to do a little favour for me. They gladly agreed to my request, and the shiny red bearmobile vehicle quickly appeared in the vicinity of the Kiosk and out leapt my friends. Then, like bear circus performers, they all jumped up onto each other's shoulders until the vertical row of teddies were just the right height to reach this pancake and get it down!! We had the "cuddliest/ biggest/strongest" teddy on the bottom and the littlest teddy on the top! But of course there was a lot of wobbling about with this high row of teddies, because we all got the giggles!! And when teddies get the giggles, we can't stop chuckling!! But, mission accomplished with getting that pancake of the roof…and none of the Kiosk Helpers knew anything about it!

But back to our Pancake Parlour Friday night meal each week. We all look so excitedly forward to this weekly event, and are made to feel so very, very welcome. And we are always given a cup of special blend of Twinings tea to end the night on a lovely high.

Until next time…happy pancake eating to you!!( And watch out if you decide to flip one up into the air!)

Your friend, Mr. Kiosk-Ted Strath

                       Also simply known as 'Ted".!!