Stuffie Mail!!

 Hullo! Here we are! A happy little family... with mail to go through!!!

Cocoa: Hey, how come Navy always gets the sunny patch!!???

Navy: Cause I'm Sandy's Left Hand Moues and YOU wanted the Right Hand Mouse spot so... shade it is for you!!!

Ahem... as I was saying... mail call and...

Cocoa: Well phooie on you then!!! I was your Right Hand Mouse Mate on that tawdry little boat you built and I am STILL Right Hand Mouse!!

Navy: Hah!!! You can't even tell Port from Starboard!!! On a ship it would be Starboard Mouse Mate!!

Sandy: AHEM!!!! Mail Call!!!!!

Sandy: Now... where were we... ah yes... reviewing our mail...

Sandy: First up is a post card from Little Fox... who went to the Schilling Cider House...

Sandy: Although he was not "cider-lit" when he wrote the card... that is good to know...

Sandy: Although... we are wondering why the post card did not accompany a shipment of cider...

Cocoa: Cider? You want cider? We were down there last year and could have brought some....

Cocoa: ... but doofus over there filled his suitcase with driftwood to build a boat here!

Navy: Who you calling a doofus??? Let it go Mr. "I need to fill my suitcase with hot chocolate!".

Sandy: And... moving right along to MOUSE Mail!!!

Cocoa & Navy: oooohhhh mouse mail!!!! But why is it addressed to Detective Sandy Bear?? And not us?????

Cocoa: Have our cousins forgotten about us? Because we were shipwrecked for so long???

Sandy: AHEM!!!! We have a lovely home made card from Beanie Mouse & Co!

Sandy: Oh great... we have pouting mice now... sigh...

Sandy: It's another Bullion Mystery Case!!!

Sandy: With what looks like a self-portrait by....

Sandy: Pierre Bonnard... hmmm... never heard of him...

*disdainful muttering by pouting mice*

"... hmph, calls himself a detective and doesn't even know Pierre Bonnard... hmph..."

Sandy: Right then!! Here we go!!! The clue is:

A two tone coin of
circular extraction.

Made to commemorate
a global infraction.

Displays the dome

of a spiritual home.

With peace sign shown in

illumination.

What commemoration is it?

*curious mice return to the conversation*...

Navy: Maybe it's the dove coin - the peace sign?

Cocoa: It says a "dome" not a "dove"!... Doofus!

*and they're off on a tangent again*...

Ahem... let's just zoom in a bit... there we go...

So... two tone round coin - £2 coin... Global infraction - probably a war... Dome of a spiritual home - St. Paul's?

Not sure about the peace sign shown in illumination... maybe the search lights? And the "V" is like the finger peace sign?

Me guesses it's this coin!!!

And now... we need some Mice Mediation!!! Somebody... save me from squabbling mice!!!

The Missing Mischief of Mice have Miraculously Materialized

 There... is it on?? Can you see anything??
No!!! Oh wait...

Oh, for pete's sake... it was your ear!!! Now it's just your arm!! Get with it!

Fine!!! you try it!!!

Oh yeah, right... that's working great now! It's just your foot and paw!

Well, you bumped it!!!

Did not!

Did too!!!

Oh, give me that thing! There!!! See... It's my face!!

Really?? It could be the moon for all the detail... it's all out of focus!

There... how's that??

Not quite... why is this so difficult!???

Oh, now it's my ear!

Maybe we're zoomed in too close now?

Oh wait... that's slightly better... steady... don't wiggle!

I'm not wiggling, you're wiggling!!! Oh... hang on... 

There! That's it... now don't breathe... don't twitch... step away from the camera...

Slowly... very slowly...

Finally!!!

Well, *ahem*... Hello there! It is us!! Cocoa Beanie and Navy Beanie!!! We haven't posted for a while... a very long while... (over a year....)

Navy, do you want to explain why we have not been posting? Why we have been marked as AWOL? Why some stuffies think we were mouse-napped and held for ransom???

Errr... lovely day ain't it... do you see, I think that's the sun peeking through the clouds...

Right... well, if he's not going to tell you... I will!!!! If you last remember... we had a good long visit with Little Fox and enjoyed it immensely... what's not to enjoy about cheese factories and beaches??

Beaches were lovely... so very lovely... but not a boat to be found!!!

Soooo... when we got home last March, we had a happy reunion with Sandy... and then Navy convinced me to go off on a little toodle around one of the local islands... in his little home-made boat... which... really, you couldn't call it a boat... at least I wouldn't call it a boat!

It was a boat!!!! It carried us didn't it????

Oh for goodness sake... we got caught in one of those atmospheric river storms and it swept us all the way up one of those steep-sided inlets of the BC coast and... then it SANK!!!

Well, it was a nasty storm!!!

And then... did you call us an Uber? NO? Did you flag down a passing ferry with your fancy semaphore training and Morse code skills? NO?

But I did build us a new boat!!!

It only too you 12 months!!!!

Well there wasn't a lot to work with!!!

Hmph... call yourself a sailor do you... hmph!!!

Well, where was the hot chocolate you were supposed to bring??? Hmph!

Um. Hello... just to interrupt this little mouse-sized spat... it seems the Missing Mischief of Mice case has been solved... 

Although spending 12 months with only each other for company has... perhaps... stressed them a little bit... more updates as we have them...

Bearzilla visits Miniature World!

Sooo... we had looked for interesting museums to visit before we came here... and we learned there was one tucked around the other side of the Empress Hotel.... let's go!

That's it over there!

It's called Minature World!

And right off the bat... we were on a space ship!!!

Watching other ships move through space! It was pretty cool!

From there, we came out to a scene from WW2... June 1944 - Normandy!

The level of detail is just... amazing.

And do you see... cause it's miniature world...

I am ginormous!!! 

Good thing there's glass around this displays or Bearzilla might run amok! This is the American War of Independence...

How do they make smoke come out of the guns???

This would require a lot of detailed work... and nimble fingers... not my next hobby...

This one is from 1918 in France... some of the first airplanes...

Then we came to a beary long display that wrapped around in a U- shape. We can travel across Canada by rail!! It's one of the longest model railways! We start in Vancouver...

And travel through BC...

Past the Last Spike at Craigellachie...

The level of detail... wow...

Then we go by the Spiral Tunnel in the Rockies...

Through Calgary...

Where we can peek into stores!

And... it actually gets dark too!!!

We can look inside houses....

Then through Winnipeg and Toronto! The streetcar moves!

This isn't an HO scale railway but... Mama says she used to have that little signaling station building!!

And then we ended up in the Maritimes!

There was soooooo much to see... 

They had Indigenous village models

And fairytale ones... this is Snow White.

Mother Hubbard and her shoe house...

Old England...

Even London!!!!

Some of the models were tiny scale (like the people were less than an inch tall)... and some, like this one were much bigger.

I could almost fit in this house!

But I still wouldn't fit through the doors. Kind of cool to find a world where things are smaller than me... instead of the normal world where everything is so much bigger!

Ooooh... this was the Swiss Family Robinson....

And here we are in Arthur's world...

With the Knights of the Round Table...

And Camelot!

That was pretty cool!!! But this little bear is feeling peckish...