SILLY SATURDAY - IN MR. HCB'S LETTUCE PATCH

Hello Lovely Blippers,

My friend, JH Ted has told me how lovely you all are, and I hope that you will forgive me for "muscling in" on Silly Saturday.  Gill, a very good friend of Mr. and Mrs. HCB, who reads her Blips every day, saw last week’s Silly Saturday Blip and said that she would be willing to loan me for a photoshoot. To say that Mrs. HCB almost bit Gill’s hand off is an understatement!

However, you need to realise that I am not just any old bear, but I am a Steiff bear, with a pedigree and a special number and I even have a tag in my ear and a certificate to prove it.  I am also a limited edition, because only 5,000 of me have been made world-wide.  Actually thinking about that, we are all limited editions - we are all “one-offs” in our own unique way!  

I am made from the finest mohair, am fully jointed and was made as a special tribute to Beatrix Potter’s most famous creation, Peter Rabbit!  I love my blue jacket with its golden buttons and although you can’t see them, I have lovely brown shoes too - in fact, you wouldn’t have been able to see them anyway, because Mrs. HCB had swathed them in plastic - I ask you, covering lovely brown shoes with plastic - she is definitely silly!  However, she assures me she did it for a good reason - it rained overnight and this morning and she said she didn’t want to get my shoes wet - again that was silly, because after all, what are shoes for, but to protect the feet - doesn’t she know anything?

I know that carrots are normally orange, but Mr. HCB says that you can get special carrots called “Heritage” and they come in all colours, so if you were thinking that the colour of my carrot was wrong, it wasn’t!

Gill has a son named Peter, so I daresay he was in mind when she bought me in 2016 and I expect you can see the badge on my jacket that says ”150 Beatrix Potter”, which is specially to commemorate Beatrix Potter 150 years after her birth on 28 July 1866 - what a shame we are just three days away from her birthday, but I’m sure she would be delighted to be mentioned on this Silly Saturday Blip - which once again, is in honour of dear Admirer.  I know she would have loved this too and after all, this is for her.  

I have to thank Mr. HCB for leaving the lettuces in his raised bed - last week, he wanted to take them all out and put them in the compost bin, but Mrs. HCB asked him to leave them until after today, so that I could sit amongst them, and bless him, he did.  I think that some will now be put into the compost bin and some taken to a neighbour whose children have guinea pigs - I hope they realise how much lettuce there is to chomp through!

Mr. HCB has a lovely vegetable garden and earlier I saw some French beans and also cucumbers in a little greenhouse, so I may just go and have a look at them and see how they compare with those grown by Mr. McGregor. 

Not much else to say except that Mrs. HCB wants me to say “Thank You” or as she is a French speaker, “Merci beaucoup” to her special friend, Gill, for loaning me out - I have enjoyed the photoshoot and will have lots to tell all my Steiff friends when I get home.

With love to you all and especially my friend JH Ted,

Peter Rabbit xx

“I hold that a strongly marked personality 
     can influence descendants for generations.” 
Beatrix Potter

P.S.   If you have never read the book about Peter Rabbit, you can find it here.  Enjoy.