Isle of Wight Tweetup

11-14 July 2014

Day 1: The Midlands to the Isle of Wight

It was my second visit to the Isle of Wight - an island off the south coast of England - for a Tweetup (a meet-up of folks I know from Twitter). Most of the same bears and baboons from last year were going to be there, but an addition this year was my pal BooBoo (@BooBooBearGreen). He lives up north in Newcastle, but had come down by train the day before and stayed overnight in Birmingham.

We agreed to pick him up at his hotel at 10am which we did, along with his sister Willow and his human mummy.

We had a good easy drive down (well, Assistant Paul did!) while Frank, Theo, BooBoo, Willow and I chatted, played travel games and napped. We also had our little baboon Bob with us, as he was given to us at last year's Isle of Wight Tweetup (below left). He's a cheeky little chap, but he wanted to go meet Kolo from Baboon HQ as it was from there we adopted him.

We were booked on the 3.30pm ferry from Portsmouth to Fishbourne on Wightlink Ferries. We arrived at about 1.30pm so figured we'd have time for a bit of lunch. It had been sunny when we left the Midlands, but by the time we arrived in Portsmouth, the sky was very grey. Worse, as we got out of the car, it started to rain!

There was a bistro across the road from the ferry dock (and a car park) so we decided to go there. I ordered some chips and garlic bread while BooBoo ordered fish and chips. It was all very nice and we did share with our pals. The assistants (and mummee) were able to snag the odd chip but not too many!)

The ferry instructions say do not arrive more than an hour before your booked time so we waited until just after 2.30pm to drive the car into the ferry port where we were told we would be going early on the 3pm ferry - worked for us as there is a Teddy Bear shop - Koko's - in Ryde on the Isle of Wight we wanted to visit and they closed at 5pm, this would buy us a little extra time.

What's this? There's both a Costa Coffee and a Greggs? My assistants don't seem to have mentioned this! We were about to board so I didn't have time to explore.

Time to board!

Fortunately, the rain had stopped so we took a few photos up on deck. We had some fun watching the ferry pull away from Portsmouth and Southdsea.

I spotted one of the hovercraft flying across the water. Then we found a lifeboat on deck so Frank decided we should have a lifeboat drill - as good practice for when we go on our Disney Cruise in October. What fun! Willow had stayed with mummy but the boys were enjoying themselves.

We saw another Wightlink ferry going the other way as we crossed. Soon we felt duty-bound to explore the ship, and found these nice sofas in the Costa Coffee shop. In the interests of research we just had to investigate the shop and, while there, we found these lovely little Captain bears. We don't need more pals so we didn't buy them - though Theo did like their sweaters.

They announced it was time to return to the car deck so we headed down and piled into the car and got ourselves comfy.

The sat nav said it was less than twenty minutes to Koko's Bear Shop in Ryde and we headed straight there, arriving a little before 4pm. It is entirely possible that we bears may have had a little party in the car on the way there. Hic!

Oh. My. Bear. What a lot of cool bears they have here, all waiting for adoption. We met a lovely badger and we asked if we could take a photo with him. Towards the back of the shop they had a selection of Bear Factory clothes! With Isle of Wight on them and not hideously expensive. We did a little pal-shopping. After maxing out the assistant's credit card (not quite) we set off for The Edgecliffe, our base for the next three nights.

We arrived not that long after 5pm, having an idea where it was as we'd stayed here last year. We met Dru and Mick again and they gave us a big welcome. We were on the second floor this time (phew - assistant was struggling with that third floor climb, though the view was great) and headed into our room. (Sorry, it seems the assistant forgot to take a photograph! Sigh)

There was a double bed, telly, dressing table, wardrobe, and table with tea and coffee-making facilities - including a tea pot, many tea bags and packets of coffee and even biscuits! The ensuite was pretty huge, with a shower cubicle rather than a bath which works for my assistants, but makes it harder for them to find somewhere to sleep! Bears get the bed!

DISASTER!!! Assistant reached into the backpack where she'd put little Bob the baboon for safe-keeping and he was gone!! We searched everything - all our bags, the car, everywhere and we couldn't find him anywhere. We knew he was on the ferry as we'd taken his photograph, but then Di thought he was safely in the backpack. He wasn't.

We spent the next hour completing the Wightlink Ferries lost property form, emailing the Teddy Bear shop as well as contacting @LostTeddyBear on Twitter and reporting Bob missing on White Booomerang which lists lost and found property - including baboons - and it automatically posts to third parties such as Facebook. Everyone who is reading this and doesn't know - please keep a note of these guys - if you ever lose, or find, a bear, you'll know who to contact. Better still TAG your pal!

Around 6.30pm we decided to head back to Koko's Bear Shop. We knew it would be closed, but if Bob had jumped out of the car to follow us, or had just fallen out he could be lying in the street. We had asked Kolo (Baboon HQ) who lives round the corner to go take a look, but we thought we should too, just in case.

Sadly, we didn't find him! We were devastated to say the least. We had brought him back home to meet his mentor, Kolo, and he'd disappeared in our care. We didn't know if he'd disappeared on the ferry or at Koko's and had no way of knowing. All we could do is see if someone found him. It was going to be a long night.

Kolo did think he'd found Bob when one of the shops reported a missing stuffie, but it wasn't Bob. Hope that one found its way home too.

Meantime, it was time to eat. As bears, very little puts us off eating. We knew of a great Indian place, The Jasmine where we went last year and, knowing it was near our hotel we headed there. Another great welcome! The waitress was the same as the previous year and she remembered me! Well, she remembered a skydiving teddy anyway.

Between us we ordered dinner - vindaloo, vegetarian dupiaza, chicken korma, mushroom rice, vegetable fried rice, plain and garlic naans. It was lovely!!

Stuffed, we headed back to the car - with a quick stop at the Co-op as the asst hadn't packed shampoo and shower gel and there were none in the room.

We headed back to the room but then spent about two more hours on Twitter and Facebook trying to spread the word about Baboon Bob's mysterious disappearance. Twitterers we knew (and didn't know) were very good about spreading the word, but we thought he must have fallen out of the car on the car deck as we got in the car after our ferry crossing - we didn't expect to hear back from Wightlink before Monday.

Very sad, but knowing we had our big Tweetup day ahead, we decided it was time to go to bed.