bear-faced nerve

have you ever had visitors descend on you out of the blue and stay and stay and stay and stay...?

these two turned up just before christmas. they said their names were 'buttons' but i wasn't having that, so i've called them 'kris' and 'kringle' - and it looks like they're here for the duration. they maintain that they are more long-lost cousins of mine, but i'm not that gullible: i may have a hippo for a cousin, but i know i'm not related to any bears even though some of my best friends are.

apart from which, they are quite disruptive - it's one long christmas party with these two 24/7. when i get back home i'm going to have to get bodge and the other bears to try and take them in hand -- or paw!

all about me

i can't ignore fame when it comes knocking: here is my greatest fan, hippolyta hipp, and my coz, buttons hippo, reading my blog, yesterday...


now, tell me honestly, is this blog becoming too self-referential - or even, heaven help me, too self-reverential?

lucky bunny

this is me with one of my christmas presents from my friend hippolyta and my coz, buttons hippo...

very acceptable, although chocolate hippos would have been bigger!

hoppy christmas

i hope you all get lots and lots of goodies
and have a very jolly time!

merry christmas!

hippo christmas

had the following greeting from the president of my fan club, hippolyta (looking ravishing on the right below) who is a house-mate of brian and david's friends, roger, sheila and my coz, buttons hippo...


Hi Buttons,

Well, here we are again: it's Christmas time and you're probably about to go jet-setting off to some exotic holiday location while I'm stuck here.

I wanted to let you know that R & S are sending a parcel to B & D, so your cousin and I have taken the opportunity to put a little something in it just for you! I would have sent you some champagne (my favourite tipple) but Buttons Hippo said it would be wasted on you, so we drank it ourselves. I must say, your cousin does go on a bit, doesn't he? After a glass or two of bubbly, there's no stopping him. I've heard more about life up the Limpopo than anyone would ever need to know.

Well, I'm sure I hope you have a lovely holiday and we'll all look forward to seeing your photos some time in 2010 (actually I just put that bit in to be polite).

And maybe, just maybe, I'll actually get to meet you in 2010 - that would be a wish come true ...

With love from your no. 1 fan,

Hippolyta

xx

thanks, hippolyta, have a great christmas and do your best to keep buttons hippo off the sauce or the stories about the limpopo will get longer than the river itself and you'll want to go there - and drown yourself!

and here's a picture of hippolyta's garden in the recent snow with, i assume, one of her entourage taking a constitutional.

hippolyta's personal assistant, roger, wrote:

"Hippolyta won't go out in case she gets her Jimmy Choos dirty (unless a chauffeur carries her to the stretch limo to all the balls and parties) and Buttons Hippo is sulking because we won't let him make a snow hippo until he gets some wellies."

i never cease to be surprised by the differences between rural and city life!

hoppy hanukkah

belated hanukkah greetings!

greek daze

this is getting - correction: this has got - ridiculous!

with brian monopolising the computer morning, noon and night i just never get a chance to blog any more.

it's a long time ago now, but to be honest i've not done much lately. i went with himself to milan the other week - just for the day - but he was so busy rabbiting (if you'll pardon the pun) about snow white and the seven dwarfs that i never even got out of the bag, let alone getting a chance to be photographed.

another opportunity sadly missed.

anyway, i've finally managed to get my paws on the keyboard so i'm going to post a few of those long overdue snaps from my trip to greece in the summer before it's time for my christmas blog!

so, here's some of the stuff i got up to on kalymnos, 'my island in the sun'...

here I am, not unlike botticelli's venus - without the sea, of course...

i found a boat that was just my size...

and this thing that brian said was a sponge although, frankly, it was pretty dry and much in need of some jam and cream...

where's stephen spielberg when you need him?

thought about moving in here...

and did a bit of climbing...

and enjoyed a game of footie...

i sat in the sun and enjoyed the views...

socialised with friends like roger who, as you can see, insisted on holding on to me so that he didn't fall of the balcony...

i also had some stimulating conversations with an austrian rabbit named hasi...

and, at the end of the day watched the moon come up over the bay...

photos by brian and david; photo of me and hasi by astrid haslinger

venetian buttons

i never thought you'd get to see these pix! they were taken months ago when we were in venice, but brian has taken so long to sort out his photos, making lame excuses (as always) about work - which, as we all know is a joke because he's hardly ever got any work, at least not to write home about - I mean, personally speaking, i don't call poncing about on tv talking about the adventures of stuffed bear, work! well, do you?

anyway, i've also got some photos to share from our recent trip to greece, but they are going to have to wait until i've put up some of my venice snaps, so here goes...

we went in july for brian's 60th - i know, it's amazing he's still capable of rememebring when his birthday is, isn't it? - and arrived at festival time, hence the paper lanterns hanging outside our hotel which, touchingly, brian thought were here in his honour...

normally we go to venice when it's freezing cold (don't forget those promised ear-muffs, gill) but this time we went in the summer which was lovely as there were lots of flowers alongside the canals. here i am, for example, up to my armpits in geraniums....

we also went - as you may have seen - to an every-other-year-art-festival-thingy where i found this rather comfy chair. of course, i'd absolutely no idea that there was a rather naughty picture hanging on the wall behind...

a rather less comfortable experience was my attempt at be-post sitting in our bedroom at hotel ala which was pretty eye-watering, i can tell you...

i also hung out for a while on this extraordinary knocker on the front door of the police headquarters in saint mark's square...

which reminds me of some goats i saw in greece... you may get to see my greek photos sometime within the next five years depending how many more tv interviews brian does about teddy-bears!

images: brian sibley and david weeks © 2009 uploaded by flickr.

in at the deep end

i was telling you the other day about our trip to the venice biennale arty-thing... well, i got bored halfway round the russian pavilion and went outside for a breath of air and noticed something absolutely terrible going on outside the nordic pavilion...

not a policeman in sight! just a load of people, taking photographs and discussing the meaningfulness of its post-modernist expressionism or something.

naturally, I hopped over to see if i could lend a paw, but it turned out to be art...

still, say what you like, it's pretty damn clever: he was in there for ages and there's certainly an art to holding your breath that long.

i asked brian whether, if he took a picture of david in the bath, that would be art and he said (rather enigmatically, i thought), "it depends..."

image: david weeks © 2009

sunny bunny

here i am in greece and, yes, it's time to chill out on the beach once more!

so, if you'll excuse me, i'll be getting on with it...

image: brian sibley © 2009

dottiness

i'm no art expert - naturally, i know what i like, but paintings of lettuces are, i've discovered, pretty far and few between - anyway we went to a thing called the venice biennale when we were in venice (obviously) and brian and david hauled me around a load of house-type places that didn't have anything in them but art or what (if you'll pardon my cynicism) passed for art...

At lunchtime we popped into the cafe for a spot of lunch and discovered more spots than i'd thought possible in one room.

it quite put me off my carrot cake...

image: brian sibley © 2009

on plinthable

when i heard that the artist antony gormley was asking people to take part in an event entitled one & other and stand on a plinth in trafalgar square as living statues for an hour every hour of the day and night for 100 days, i told brian to put me up for it.

of course, being a b.o.f. (work it out!), he said rabbits couldn't apply.

then, yesterday, what do i see on that plinth but a rabbit!!!



and not just a rabbit on a plinth but a rabbit on a plinth on a plinth!


as it turned out, it didn't do very much and i don't know how he managed to breath under that dome thing for almost an hour, but he was definitely up there!

you can see the film of the whole thing - if you have an hour of life to waste - but i doubt if you'll be much wiser at the end!

naturally, i confronted brian about the whole thing and guess what he said? he said the rabbit was stuffed!

as if!

a piece of cake

did i mention i went to brian's 60th birthday party last week?

well i had to, didn't i? after all, when you're that old you need all the support you can get - and, apart from any other considerations, there was chocolate cake on the menu...

round and round the garden

brian and david took out in the garden the other week - not their garden of course which is filled up with the playhouse of the people downstairs and populated not only by occasional children, but - worse - frequent foxes!

no, we went to a place called marle place gardens (funny that, a place called 'place'!) and while there i had a bit of swing...

met some strange birds...

and had a chat with humpty dumpty who, i'm glad to report, is back on his wall...

i also found myself on the horns of a dilemma...

...at least that's what brian said it was and he ought to know because he's been on them often enough!

the photos are by brian - he insists i put that in, he says for copyright reasons, but we all know its just feeding his vanity! - and you can see more of his and david's garden snaps (though i've no idea why you'd want to!) on his flickr album, up the garden path.

who's zoo

here i am on a trip to the zoo.

this way....

when i got there i went a bit ape...

 

and then did a bit of tiger-wrangling...

kewing for a look

brian said they'd be a lot of big things in the palm house at kew gardens - he wasn't wrong...


as for the thing in the lid of the box, i'm really surprised they were allowed to show it in public - especially with children, old people and impressionable rabbits about!

disappearing bunny

i went to the magic circle the other day.

one minute i was there...


...the next minute---

all mine!

look!
my very own personalised easter egg!


oh, yum!

happy easter!

eggsclusive

spot the hidden easter bunny...

hippopotanews

there was a knock at the door last week - well, more of an almighty great bang - and when i opened it, there, on the doorstep, was a hippopotamus who announced that he was my long lost cousin from africa...


personally, i thought this was unlikely as i didn't think rabbits and hippos were related, but he said his name was buttons hippo and, sure enough, he had his name written on the bottom of his feet which struck me as a very practical way of introducing yourself...


anyway, buttons hippo was soon going on and on about living beside the nile and about the beauty of the pyramids at sunrise and how surprising it was that a "world traveller like you hasn't ever been to egypt".

and, as if that wasn't bad enough, he was soon eating me out of house and home! it didn't take me long, therefore, to come to the conclusion that one of us had to go - and that it wasn't about to be me!

i decided to pack him off to live with brian and david's friends, sheila and roger, who have a kind of hippo sanctuary that is home to (among others) hippolyta hippo about whom i have written before.

so, happily, it looks like we've seen the back of him and apparently he's settling down ok in his new home in ascot.

ascot? you ask! well, yes, i know what you mean and I have to say if sheila and roger are thinking of trying to race him, they're probably in for a bit of a disappointment!

expressing myself

it's been ages since i blogged and i might not have got round to it this time but sheila sent me this cartoon by giles from the daily express on 24 july 1969 and asked if that was me on the right paw side of the picture?


me? 1969? just how old do you think i am, sheila?

in point of fact, it was my great-grandfather who used to moonlight as an artist's model.

i'm snow fool...

...but i like fooling around in the snow!




Images: Brian Sibley & David Weeks © 2009

bunny bravery

as my fans and followers well know --- i am fearless!



photos: © brian sibley 2009