Taking to the air!

As we walked back towards the Sylvanian Village, we spotted a big empty field, with lots of flat grass and no cows at all. "What a waste of grass" we thought, until we came to a gap in the hedge, and there we saw the most wonderful aeroplane. It was shiny and superfast looking, with a huge propeller on the front, and had clearly been designed with an adventure seeking pup in mind! I walked around it to check out the controls and reached up to the canopy that covered the little cockpit. It opened! I was just about to climb in and start her up when I noticed the little Molebabe looking sad. "What's the matter?", I asked him. "It's a single-seater - there would be no room for me!", he wailed. Oh dear, I hadn't thought of that. Reluctantly, I closed the canopy and we walked away. Perhaps it was just as well, though, as my experience of flying planes is very limited - well zero to be exact. I sat in one for seven hours when I first came here from Labrador, and nothing much seemed to happen - just watching films and being brought food - so it can't be that difficult. But I suppose the landing might be a bit tricky.

So we still have the problem - what can we use to get down to Oxford quickly and safely to visit the Mole and his Boy?

Two wheels good, four wheels better!

After my disappointing attempt to borrow a bicycle, I decided that motorised transport was they way to go. And fortunately I knew just where to find a car! There aren't many cars in Sylvania, but the Mr and Mrs Furbanks (Kenneth and Emma to their friends) have a big old-fashioned American car. They say that they got it "when we were in Hollywood, darling", but being squirrels they mostly chase about the trees and hardly ever use it.

I took the Molebabe over to the car and lifted him up so I could pass him in through the open window. He opened the door and I got in and seated myself behind the steering wheel. I thought we were about to start out on a great adventure, until I remembered that you need a key to start a car. Also it's probably best if your paws can reach the pedals to make it stop and go. Never mind, we had a great hour or so with me pretending to drive and the mole making brumming noises. We set off back home for tea, but then as we were passing a large open field we saw something even more exciting!

Bobby's back!

Hello again everybody! As you may have noticed, I haven't updated my story for quite a long time now. The main reason is that I have been busier now that I'm going to Big School, but also because a certain Mole asked me to be his biographer. I didn't realise how much work that would be. We wait ages for his GoogleMole messages and then he expects his Blog to updated within moments. He says his fans are impatient, but we all know who the impatient one is!

Anyway, the Mole has been away for ages now with his Boy, and although some people like the peace and quiet, some smaller animals seem to miss him a lot. So much so, in fact that a little Molebabe came crying to me the other day saying that he just couldn't wait until Mole came home to see him, and could we visit him in Oxford? Well, I couldn't see why not - I mean, how far can Oxford be for a Pup who's already travelled from Labrador?

Of course, I knew it was far enough away to require transport, and, as luck would have it, I spotted a nice black, shiny bicycle leaning against a wall. It even had a basket in the front, just the right size for the Molebabe to sit in. Off we set, and things were going swimmingly until we went past the Sylvanian Police Station. "'Ello, 'ello what's going on 'ere?" said a gruff voice. I screeched to halt, and there was PC Badger, looking less than impressed. Apparently it was his bike!

It took a bit of explaining, but we managed to calm PC Badger down, and convinced him that we were just borrowing his bike for a practice. He didn't really mind, but he told us that Oxford is far too far for a bike ride. he said "You'll need something with a bit more oomph than that!". And that gave me an idea....

He's Gynormous!!

You could have knocked me down with a sprig of heather when I met Uncle Big Wee Jock! I never thought that a haggis could be bigger than me! He was completely round and so furry that it was very difficult to tell which end was which. In fact, I was talking to him for at least 10 minutes before I realised that he was lying on his back. he said he was"taking a rest after a wee dram" whatever that might mean. Actually I'm pretty sure that he just wanted his tummy tickling - haggises are just like puppies in that respect.

After this, I'm not sure I can take too much more highland excitement. Also it's getting pretty drafty in a kilt now we're getting towards autumn. Next time you see me, I think I'll have trusty trousers and boots back on!

A haggis a last!

...but not quite what I expected! After much unfruitful searching, we finally took some advice from a local expert. Instead of endlessly tramping about in the hills (or braes as they call them around here) we decided to set a trap. We balanced a cardboard box on a stick and under it we placed two items that we were assured were irresistible to any haggis; a Tunnock's teacake (unwrapped of course) and a small glass of finest Malt Scotch. Then we tied a long piece of cotton to the stick and retired to a place of concealment. After about an hour of uncomfortable waiting (heather is very scratchy in the wrong places, I can assure you) we heard some some snuffling and squeaking from the box. Although we couldn't see anything, we guessed it must be a haggis and pulled the string. The box plopped down, and we ran over to it so see what we had captured.

As we picked the box up, we heard a small voice singing an old highland song*, and we were certain then that we had got our first haggis.

Imagine our surprise then, when we lifted up the box and were faced not with a small white furry creature, but a bright purple one.

"You're not a haggis - you're purple!" I exclaimed in amazement.

"Am ah no? Then what de ye ken ah am then, ye wee sassenach pup?", came the reply. "Do ye think we're all tartan jobs frae the souvenir shop?"

Well that clinched it. We were clearly mistaken and he definitely was the genuine article. We apologised and, when he had calmed down he explained that his name was Tiny Wee Jock McHaggis of Glenmore. He also told us how, quite against popular belief, haggises come in all colours and sizes, and they're not all white at all - and none of them are tartan.

We soon became good friends, and I was able to ask him a question that had been bothering me ever since he told us his name. "If you're Tiny Wee Jock, does that mean there are much bigger haggises?".

"Oh aye", he replied. "If you like, I'll take ye to meet mah great Uncle Big Wee Jock". Well that sounded great, and what could there be to worry about - I mean, how big could a haggis be?

* The song turned out to be called "Plankton's Lament, or Whale Meet Again". Or something like that.

Give me a clue!

After my unfortunate case of mistaken identity involving Rabbie the Scottish sheep, I realised that I needed to do some more research. I mean, I knew that haggises are round and furry, but so are lot of creatures. So how do you distinguish a haggis from all the other highland creatures? I asked James for some advice and he said that they have a very distinctive squeak, made when alarmed, angry, sleepy, relaxed or alert.

Armed with this useful information, I set off for an extended Haggis hunt. I couldn't believe my luck when after only a few minutes I gained my first contact! I rushed around the corner, eager to meet my first ever haggis in person - and who should I meet but a very small hamster, taking some exercise in his wheel.

I have to admit to being a bit disappointed at first, but once I got chatting to young Hamish (that was the hamster's name) I realised that making a new friend is just as exciting as discovering a new species. And anyway, Hamish says that he's going to help me and Jack on our search!

Oops - my mistake!

Well, it might have big, round, white and furry, but it definitely wasn't a haggis! As soon as I tugged on a handful of fur, I realised my mistake. There was a very loud, cross sounding baaing noise, and I came face to face with the largest sheep I've ever seen. For a moment I thought James and I were in real trouble, as the ram glowered down at us with his fearsome horns and wild eyes. But then Jack, thinking quickly, said "Good morning to ye, good sir, will ye no take a wee drop of tea with us?". The ram was taken aback by the politeness of the young pig, and, although I didn't realise this, Scottish sheep are apparently very fond of tea - special sheep tea if possible. Anyway, he came back to Jack's house with us, and on the way, we became quite friendly. He explained that is his name is Rabbie, of the clan MacBleat, and he is a highland ram by birth. We told Rabbie all about our quest to find the legendary haggis, and he agreed to be our guide. So everything turned out really well in the end.

In Search of the Wild Haggis!

The most exciting adventure of my Scottish holiday started on the day that I met James. James the Hog, comes from Southern Uplands of Scotland where he helps his daddy on their sheep farm. I became firm friends with James, who was very good a telling tales about Scotland and the legends of the Scottish folk. The story that really interested me was about the wild haggis. This is a creature who lives in the high glens and, though very shy, can be lured out, if you know how. James told me that, if we were to see a haggis in his natural environment, then it was very important that I should blend in with the scenery. The best way to do this, he told me, was to wear traditional Scottish clothing. We arranged to meet the following day at James's father's farm, and I took myself straight off to a Kiltmaker's shop. The next morning, feeling very proud of finery, I met up with James, only to be told that what he had meant was a nice tweed jacket or something, and some stout shoes. I felt a bit silly, but James said that he was sure it would be fine, and so we started our search immediately.

The first thing I had to do was find out what a haggis actually looks like. James said they are thought to be round and covered in white fur, so when I saw a what looked like a big shaggy rug on legs I leaped for it and grabbed hold of it.

Do you think I had captured the legendary haggis? You'll have to wait until next time to find out!

Yes, I'm Back!

Hello again everybody! I'm sorry I haven't written anything for such a long time. I have been away on holiday in Scotland with some of my friends. We had a lovely time exploring old castles, walking in the highlands and making lots of new friends. I'll tell you about some of my adventures in the next couple of weeks - you wouldn't believe what strange animals we met. There was one who didn't seem to have any paws at all, but was very furry and had a loud squeak. Apparently he's a sort of animal you don't meet anywhere else in the world, and, to be honest I'm not surprised.

Anyway, here's a nice picture of Rebecca, Mole and I having a little rest after looking around a lovely castle. Doesn't it look peaceful and tranquil? Well, it was, for about 90 seconds after this picture was taken. That was when Mole spotted a nearby bowling green and decided to have a burrow. He thought he had made an attractive pattern of molehills to add to the challenge of the game of bowls - a bit like a crazy golf course, but no windmill. Unfortunately, the bowling club didn't agree, and we all had to leave quite rapidly!

Smugglers Ahoy!

We had our brainwave just at the crucial moment. The net was closing in on our little friend when Rebecca spotted a friend's mummy, Mrs Panda, who was having trouble her baby. The baby didn't want to be in its pram, and carrying the baby and pushing her pram at the same time was a real trial for the mummy. So Rebecca generously offered to push around the empty pram. "We'll meet you outside the museum" said Rebecca, and Mrs Panda gratefully agreed, little suspecting that we had an ulterior motive!
We tucked our new chum in the pram and pulled the frilly canopy up around to hide him as much as possible. Well, we had a few close shaves, as it turns out that dinosaurs are not over blessed with common sense, but they do have a lot of curiosity. He would keep sitting up to have a look around at all the wrong moments. But finally we managed to smuggle him out of the museum to freedom!

Now all we have to do is find somewhere for him to live. I hope he's not a meat-eating dinosaur!

Look out behind you!!

After the excitement of the volcano exhibition, and all the Museum staff running around looking for a missing dinosaur, we decided to go somewhere for a little bit of peace. We went into the Earth gallery, and I was showing Mole where Labrador is on a giant globe, when suddenly, Rebecca Rabbit tapped me on the shoulder. "Bobby!" she squeaked. "Not now, Rebecca, we can go to the shop in a minute", I replied. "BOBBY!!", she shouted in a very cross voice, "will you please look at this!"
I turned round to see a small, friendly looking stranger standing smiling up at Rebecca. We realised this must be the missing dinosaur and took him by the paw to fetch the Museum staff. But the little dino piped up,"Please can I come with you? I'm bored with sitting in that display case pretending to hatch out every 15 minutes. It's not what I call performance art". So we decided to take him home with us. But how were we to smuggle him out past the staff? We needed our thinking caps on for this one...

Learning about the power of our planet

Our next outing was to a Geological museum. At first, we weren't too sure about this, as it sounded like it might be a bit dull and "educational". After all, who wants to look at a load of old rocks, when it's sunny outside? But how wrong we were! It turns out that geology is full of exciting things like volcanoes and dinosaurs. One display combined the two things together - it was a demonstration of how volcanoes erupt and as the volcano threw out loads of smoke and stuff, the volcano itself gradually disappeared. When it had finally all gone, there was a small dinosaur. Mole said it was a parasaurolophus - but what do moles know?

Anyway, it didn't look like much else was going to happen, so we went off to look at some more exhibits. Mole saw a sign saying "plate tectonics", and he thought that sounded like food might be involved, so we headed in that direction. Actually it turned out that there was nothing edible at all, so after a while, we set off for the museum cafe, to see if we could meet up with Rebecca Rabbit. On the way, we had to pass the volcano display again, and to our amazement, the case was empty! The museum staff seemed quite bothered about this, so we offered to help find the model dinosaur for them. "Model?" they said, "It's not a model!". Ooer, I think we've got a problem on our paws again!

Maybe it's a boy thing?

I thought today's school trip was even better than last week's trip to the aquarium! We went to an aeroplane museum - it was absolutely stuffed with brilliant planes - some of them you could even sit in the cockpit and pretend to fly! I have to say that this trip wasn't so popular with everyone, though. At the start of the visit, Mrs Ewe said that, as it's a very big museum, we should go around in pairs. I joined up with Rebecca Rabbit, and everything was fine for about ten minutes. After that, the novelty seemed to wear off for Rebecca. "Oh look", she said with heavy sarcasm "another aeroplane. And another. And, oh goodie, another one". I tried not to be put off and took her to see a really old plane, with propellers. At this, she became quite agitated, saying "If those big fan things start whirring round, it will ruin my fur-do". I tried explaining how propellers work, but her eyes just glazed over. Maybe planes area boy thing? Anyway, Rebecca perked up soon after when we spotted the snack bar and the shop. And do you know what? She bought a model of the plane with propellers to take home! Sometimes I just don't understand girls!

School Trip Excitement!

When I arrived at school yesterday, there was really exciting news. Mrs Ewe announced that, as we've all worked hard this year, we can go on some school trips! Some of the smaller pupils got a bit overexcited about this, and some of the expectations are a bit unrealistic - I mean how many classes do you hear about who go to visit the pyramids for the afternoon? Anyway, we all turned up this morning with our packed lunches, and climbed on the big bus for the first mystery trip. We drove for about an hour and arrived at a seaside town. The bus parked up outside the Aquarium and we all trooped in. It was all very interesting - everybody loved seeing the fierce sharks and the petting pool where you could actually touch some of the fish was great. But my favourite was seeing Nemo, in pride of place in his own splendid tank. I always wondered what happened after the film - he stayed on in show business anyway. Everybody had a great time and the trip was a success, although it has to be said that the younger otters were just a bit too enthusiastic at the petting pool -you're not supposed to actually dive in and catch the fish apparently. No harm was done , though, and we all arrived home tired but happy. I can't wait to see where we go on Monday.

A mole's patience is rewarded at last

At first, the mystery just deepened as we followed Mr Duckington's instructions and went to the hardware store. We handed the note to shopkeeper along with the money we'd been given, and in return, we were given a large box. We raced home to see what was in it. You should have seen the mixture of amazement and disappointment on the little mole's face when out came a small shiny bin! As he was staring at this bizarre item, I looked inside the box and saw that there was another smaller container and a little book of instructions. I opened the book and read out aloud "Turn your waste into valuable garden compost with the aid of our easy to use Wormery". At the mention of that last word the mole immediately perked up and got very excited. "Read the rest! Read the rest!" he squeaked. So I carried on and we read all the instructions. All you have to do is put left over lettuce leaves and such stuff in the bin in layers and then add the contents of the other box - some special, very hungry worms! Then sit back and wait and the worms will multiply, eat all the waste and create quality compost for the garden. All this seemed foolproof apart from the word "wait". Needless to say we now have an empty box and a very happy mole. We had to trundle straight back to the shop to buy some more worms, but he's the happiest little mole you've ever seen now, bouncing along singing his favourite Girls Aloud song. Can you guess what it is?

Ducktastic News!

At first, when it started to rain, the molebabe got very excited, assuming that the worms would immediately rush to the surface and surrender in huge numbers. Unfortunately, it seems that worms have more patience than moles. After a couple of minutes the little chap started to snuffle and whimper about getting wet, and how his Mummy had warned him about catching a chill. Things were not looking good at all, when along came Mr and Mrs Duckington. They are a very nice family of ducks who have recently moved into the area. The smaller Duckingtons were playing at a friend's pond, but mum and dad were out for a walk, and they had umbrellas. At least this way the little mole could watch the ground for worms and stay dry.

It was no good in the end, though. I think it rained too hard, as the ground ended up all muddy and we didn't see a single worm. But, just when I thought that we were facing another big disappointment, Mr Duckington said "I know a place where you can find worms - absolutely guaranteed". He wrote an address and some details on a piece of paper and gave the little mole a five pound note! He's a most generous duck - so we said thank you, borrowed an umbrella and rushed off to the address on the note - which turned out to be a hardware shop. Surely they don't sell worms at a hardware shop?

Bring in the experts

Well, we did what the Grunts suggested. We went along to see the chickens and asked for their advice. Apparently, there is a special technique to be used when finding worms. You patter your feet up and down on the earth and the worms think it's raining and come to the surface. That's the theory at any rate, so we sat and waited to see what would happen. You'll never guess - it actually worked! There was only one small flaw in the plan, though - the chickens scoffed all the worms before the poor little mole could get near them. After ten minutes all we had was a 100% worm-free patch of grass, and a completely empty molebabe!

Never mind, I told him, it looks like it's going start raining for real any moment, and I've got some other friends who will help us out, and can be relied upon not to eat the worms. We just need to take some bread...

Never judge a book by its cover

Oh dear, I made a huge mistake, assuming that all pigs like to do is roll around in mud all day, snuffling about and saying hello to a load of worms! When we met the Grunt family, they turned out to be the cleanest, neatest, most fastidious bunch of creatures I've ever laid my eyes on. I don't think they were very impressed with my suggestion that they could help me grub up a few wrigglers for my little black chum. However, they were very nice about it, and put their heads together to try to think of a solution. After a while, Hugh Grunt came back and announced "We've had an idea, but it probably won't work. You see, the creatures that we've most often seen scratching around in the dirt for wriggly things are chickens. But where on earth could you even one chicken around here?". If only they knew!

Playing hard to get

Finding worms is not as easy as you might think! I went out into the garden with a trowel and a bucket, and I thought I'd be able to fill the bucket with tasty (for a mole) worms in no time at all. Well, after about half an hour of hard but entirely worm-free work, my little friend was getting rather restless. He looked at me with his bright little eyes in such a imploring manner that it was almost possible to ignore the loud rumbling noise from his tummy. Then I had a brain wave! There's a new family of pigs called the Grunts who have moved into the village. I haven't actually met them yet, but everyone knows pigs love rooting about in the mud and getting covered in muck generally. I'm sure they must come across plenty of worms in the process that they would be happy to share with a hungry little mole. I gave him a chocolate digestive to keep him going and set of for the Grunts' house.

Bobby to be a burrow surveyor?

I've had to do some funny things since I arrived at Sylvania, but this just about takes the biscuit! It all started when I went over to Rose Cottage, to visit my friends Bruce Koala and Rebecca Rabbit. When I arrived, the whole house was in a uproar. Snuffles, the little molebabe had disappeared! Of course I helped with the search, and after turning the whole place upside down, we finally found him hiding in a big basket. We asked him why he was in there, and he answered "Oi was gurtly hungered, and oi thought oi moight find some wormers in ee big basket". Goodness knows why he though there would be worms in a basket, but what was clear was that he had a very hungry little mole on our paws. Moles, as you might know, are nothing if not single minded, and so we realised that we had better find him some worms quick. So we decided that we'd better get out into the garden and get searching. Who'd have thought that I'd spend my day peering into holes in the ground - but how hard can finding a worm be?