Wheelz Online

So a couple of weeks ago, myself and my partner went to Kent for the weekend to attend the Bad Taste Bear summer picnic.  For anyone not familiar with the bears they are like the adult version of those horrid grey ‘me to you’ bears that you find in every Clinton Card shop.  Well anyway, it was a four hour drive from where we live to where we were staying and it was like another world.  We were at a place called East Grinstead which as far as I can tell, consists of a crossroads with a hotel and pub on one side and a Kwik Fit on the other.  At least there was an internet connection…

On the friday we decided to check out BlueWater shopping centre to see if it was as big as we were told and I have to say I was a little disapointed in it.  We live quite near to Meadowhall shopping mall and the Trafford Centre and, well, Bluewater seemed to have most of the same shops and the only thing we could see different was the layout. But never mind.  The one thing it did have which i liked was a Lego shop.  Now down south this isn’t a big deal aparently, but from where i’m from we’ve never had a dedicated Lego shop so i was like a kid in a candy store.  Yes I know i’m 32 but i’m a big kid at heart.

Saturday came and it was time for the picnic.  This was to be held at Groombridge hall.  The ‘doors’ opened at 10am and as we weren’t sure where it was and also because my satnav was throwing a strop and not working properly all the time we decided to set off at 9am.  Well it was a good job we did as when we arrived with 40 minutes to wait, we were already about 60th in the queue.  This didn’t matter though as Mr Bear was entertaining us all.  Yes a man in a bear suit made all the grown-ups happy.  Its just the way it goes.  When the queue was let it we went first to the ticket tent to pick up out picnic bears (6 between the 2 of us) then off to the shop for some more bears (another 6) and then back to the car to place them in the boot.  When we got back they had a ‘tombola’ more like a number of balls to choose between what bear you won.  So we had a few goes on there (3 more bears) then went and painted for a while.  Later on we had another go on the bear tombola (3 more..  hope your counting) and had a walk around the gardens which I wasn’t all that bothered about but my gf had a nice time.  So that led to about 3pm and by that time we were both pretty hungry and tired so we left.  Aparently about 10 minutes later it started to rain so we were pretty lucky over it.

So a good weekend was had and we’re looking forward to the next party.  Just in case you couldn’t be bothered to add up we came away with 18 bears amongst other things.

And then today I’ve managed to get my hands on a bear I’ve been trying to track down for years.  Its a good month for the bear!

This was the weekend I’d been looking forward to for months. It was the Bad Taste Bear spring party in Leicester. For anyone who hasn’t seen the bears, they are like x-rated versions of those little grey “I love you” bears which every girl goes gooey. For example, imagine a bear with a chainsaw and your there. I’ve been an avid collector for about 4 years now and have amased about 130 of these little statues, all displayed in a series of glass cabinets in my living room. And as such a collector I am a member of the ‘fan club’ and go to their meets and parties. This was one of them.

Based on Tarantino and with a themed bear to match, 4 hours of partying and meeting other like-minded people was the order of the day. I’ve been to such parties before, and unfortunatly this one didn’t stack up to the rest. It was good, but the venue was pretty poor for a party - It was a converted cinema screen which made the stage look a long way from where we were sat. But with all my moaning, I would go to another if it was exactly the same. The reason these are such fun is the people who share the same passion; you can go up to a stranger and be good friends 3 hours later which happened to me with the likes of members calling themselves “ScarboroughKID, or JonnyB64″ and other wonderful names.

The only problem I find is that when it comes to the little furry things, I have no willpower and end up buying more of them. So naturally I came away from the night with 4 new bears for my collection. Its just a good job that my partner is as addicted as me.