Book of the Month: The Girl Who Speaks Bear

This book by Sophie Anderson was in a stack we were sorting through in our front room. Cathy isn't sure where she picked it up originally. The illustrations (by Kathrin Honesta) caught my eye and when I opened it, I saw it was a book with a map in the front. I'm a sucker for books with maps in the front. So I thought I would give it a go and added it to my 'to read' pile. 

Cathy has told me she wants to read the book too, so I am going to try and keep this as spoiler-free as possible. It's set in a Russian-esque setting -  snow and woods and various anglicised Russian words dropped into the text. There is a glossary of those words in the back, presumably to help younger readers as this is a 'young adult' book.

The story itself is interspersed with short fairy tales, but overall is a fairly standard quest in search of answers and gathering friends to help you along the way. The central character is a girl called Yanka, who is tall and strong and feels like she doesn't really belong in the village where she is growing up. And that's mainly because she doesn't really belong. She's a foundling and, as she becomes aware of that and starts to wonder about where she really comes from, she finds out that a lot of folk tales she has been told have personal significance for her. 

Other books on the back cover

Sophie Anderson has written some other books drawing on a similar Russian folk tale backdrop, and it felt like some of the other characters, like the yaga witches in their living house, appeared without much of an introduction because they have featured in other books. That was a bit odd.

I thought there was a lot to like about this book. Some of the descriptions and metaphors are beautifully done. The setting tends to work. However, overall I struggled to get into the book. Yanka's internal monologue gets a bit tiring at times as she picks over the different stories she hears and tries to fathom the truth in them. I'm glad I persevered as the pace picked up towards the end and I ended up wanting to know how the story ended. 

Recap of the month - February 2023

This monthly round up is a bit late because the end of February and the beginning of March proved to be very busy with a work trip to North Wales, followed by adventuring to the eastern side of England - but there will be more about that when I review March!

I didn't blog much in February because it was a very busy footballing month, including a new milestone on the first Saturday when I travelled with one of my footballing friends called Paul to the Kassam Stadium in Oxford. This was my first visit to that football ground and it became the 100th ground I've watched football at since I started keeping a record of football matches in 1992. 

The Friday night immediately before hitting my century of grounds on the Saturday I went to Abergavenny Town's rather dilapidated old ground, which was my 99th ground where I've seen a game. On both the Friday and the Saturday I was supporting the away team - Barry Town and Shrewsbury Town - and both times the team I supported won 1-0.

In total I went to 8 games, which was a new record monthly total for February. In addition to Oxford and Abergavenny, I saw two games at different grounds in Port Talbot. The Viking ship on the Port Talbot Town logo caught my eye.

I went to two Barry home games, and saw Barry play a game in Taff's Well too. I dragged my buddy Connor along to one of the games at Jenner Park. It was the first time he'd seen them since before the pandemic.

I even had a trip to Caldicot where I saw my friend Ben play for Caldicot Town against Tredegar Town. 

Due to an injury crisis at the club, Ben was playing in an unfamiliar role at right back. Despite that his team won. 

It wasn't all football though. In the middle of the month, we had a lovely Saturday with my sister, Sarah, and her three kids. We met them in Bristol and visited The Wild Place, which is a well-planned zoo park with a variety of animals kept in nice environments. The highlight was the walkways through woods populated with lynx, wolves, wolverines and bears. The bears were hibernating but we were able to watch them snooze on the den-cam. (Even if they had been awake, you're not allowed to play with them anyway.)

I went back to Oxford for a second time later in the month, this time with Cathy. We stopped to have lunch with a friend on our way to Haddenham, which isn't too far away.  Our friend, Colin, had passed away and we were on our way to his funeral. 

We got to know Colin because we became good friends with his daughter, Viv, when we started attending the same church as her back at the start of the century. He was a kind, gentle man with a good sense of humour. He was also a skilled potter and he gifted us several ceramic items that will remind us of him. 

Colin's funeral was in the parish church of St Mary the Virgin in Haddenham. We had visited the church before, when Viv and Ian got married there just over 15 years ago. 

Outside the church is the village duck pond. This is an important cinematic landmark because it was the film location for the scene in The Great Muppet Caper when Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo land in the UK after being thrown out of the cargo hold of an aeroplane. I feel Colin would have appreciated that we stopped to take a selfie with it (see the picture at the top of the blog post).

Our 2021 menagerie of adopted animals

At the start of 2021, when the world was locked down, Cathy and I read about a number of zoos and other places that cared for animals that were finding finances difficult. We decided to sponsor an animal a month in different places, which means by the end of 2021 we had accumulated quite the virtual menagerie! (And some toy animals too!)

We have sponsored rhinos for a while through both Save the Rhino and WWF. The updates from both organisations are encouraging, and some rhino populations are doing quite well. However, these brilliant animals are still targeted by poachers who are after their horns for use in 'traditional medicine'. Rhino horns are made from the same substance as fingernails so it's not exactly a rare commodity. If anyone wonders why I have a very dim view of humans, the rhino poaching industry is exhibit A in my case against humanity. 

Anyway, we started the year by sponsoring the care of a rescued bat at Cuan Wildlife Centre. This is a growing rescue and rehabilitation centre in Shropshire who do some wonderful work for wild animals. Their Facebook updates are an absolute joy. As part of the sponsorship package, we got a cuddly bat.

In February we sponsored a turtle at The Deep in Hull. This is a stunning aquarium that we visited in 2019 while on holiday in Yorkshire. We particularly liked the sawfish. However, we chose the 'turtles' sponsorship package which came with a toy turtle in a tin with various other goodies in it, including a nice fridge magnet.

In March we decided to sponsor a seal at the Cornish Seal Sanctuary in Gweek. It's some time since we went there last. There's a choice of sponsoring a seal pup that will be released or sponsoring one of the permanent residents. Reading through all the biographies of seals you can sponsor presented us with a tough choice. We eventually picked a grey seal called Pumpkin, because he has a very rare illness and is on permanent medication so he can't be released into the wild. Cathy identified with the rare illness and medication side of things. 

There wasn't a cuddly seal in the adoption package, but there was a fridge magnet of Pumpkin. It's on our fridge along with some of the other magnets we've acquired through sponsorships - Pumpkin's is bottom right. The rhino in the picture is Lankeu, our WWF adoptee. 

April's adoptee was a Painted Dog at West Midlands Safari Park. They call them Hunting Dogs but I prefer the name Painted Dogs. These wild dogs are very rare now, and like most wild dogs part of the problem is that humans either regard them as pests and kill them, or regard them as pets and feed them, thus disrupting their natural existence. 

They also have the most amazing ears, as seen in the glossy photo that came in the adoption pack. The ears are captured in the little toy dog that we received as well. 

In May we adopted an elephant at Woburn Safari Park. We had a great day out at Woburn a couple of years ago and while we were there we got to go to an elephant's birthday party. Well, we watched from a distance as a troop of elephants demolished a "cake" made of branches and the birthday girl bounced a giant red ball around with glee. There was also a 'parade' where they brought a well-behaved elephant right next to people and we could reach out and touch it. An amazing experience and one I would recommend. 

We took a bit of a different tack in June. We had been watching the puffin cam set up by The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales, so we sponsored a puffin through them. The certificate was very detailed, including the leg ring identity of the puffin we support.

In July we sponsored Biggie the Aldabran Giant Tortoise at Bristol Zoo. Biggie has been a resident in Bristol Zoo since 1975, the year Cathy was born. He is the oldest animal currently in the zoo and has been there longer then any other animals. Biggie weighs 200k, which is the weight of a silverback gorilla. So that's why he's called "Biggie". The cuddly version of him looks a bit grumpy.

He seems happier in the photos in the adoption literature. Although, it's hard really to tell how a tortoise is feeling. They're inscrutable. 

August's adoption was a bit different. For the first time we adopted animals at somewhere we have yet to visit. The Wild Place is linked to Bristol Zoo and we sponsored their sleuth of bears. (Did you know a collection of bears is a sleuth? I didn't.) The bears are Neo, Nilas, Albie and Gemini. I'm a big fan of bears. Definitely my spirit animals. 

We hadn't adopted any amphibians yet and they are probably the biological phylum most in danger of disappearing entirely. We made up for our oversight in September by adopting a Fea's Tree Frog at Paignton Zoo. Aparently these particular frogs aren't overly endangered at the moment. Long may it stay that way.

Not content with already having two rhino adoptions on the go, we adopted the rhinos at Folly Farm in October. It was a trip to Folly Farm on a cold February day in 2018 where we learned about the work of Save the Rhino. I remember one of the rhinos present peering cautiously out of the rhino house door at swirling snowflakes and deciding outside was not for them that day. I don't blame them!

Technically, we sponsor all the rhinos, but the one pictured on the certificate is Manyara the matriarch of Folly Farm's crash of eastern black rhinos. 

We went back to aquatic creatures in November, buying a Stevie Shark cuddly toy from WWF's Cub Club. The money from the sale goes to support shark conservation in UK waters. Stevie is filled with 100% recycled polyester filling and has got to be one of the cutest sharks ever. He is very soft and nice to cuddle!

December's adopted animal is still on its way to us, delayed by Christmas post. (And probably by omicron as well - everything is getting blamed on that at the moment!) So, there will be an update post at some point in the next few weeks to round off the 2021 menagerie!

Visiting the Grangetown Zoo

This was a fun little community thing that happened right at the end of May. A community project called the Grangetown Art Trail began posting pictures of people preparing their windows for the Grangetown Zoo for people to visit over the weekend. This is a bit like the rainbows project that I've blogged about previously.

We decided to join in. I say "we", but Cathy is the creative one. She made these wonderful bears to sit in our window. Everyone, meet Arthur and Ursula.

Cathy also made them a little, Welsh-speaking, friend.

We went out for a couple of walks over the weekend and found some more "exhibits". Sorry for the quality of the photography, but you know how it is trying to photograph animals...

We saw lemurs in Earl Street (behind a very clean, very reflective window!)

They were all named after Harry Potter characters.

We saw tigers in Holmesdale Street

And nearby there was a flamingo

There was a very tall giraffe in an upstairs window in Paget Street

And a monkey who had fallen out of a tree. We helped him back into a hedge.

There was a variety of fauna on display in Virgil Street

The parrot was bright and colourful, with beady eyes

They had a majestic, yet approachable looking lion as well

And then in Warwick Street we found the aquatic exhibit

The main resident of which was this handsome knitted octopus

It was a really lovely art project; a celebration of creativity. It was great fun wandering the streets looking for the different creatures as people shared their locations on Twitter. I would really like this to become a thing that happens annually with more people joining in and not be 'one of those things we did during the crazy lockdown'.