Unless you’ve been very busy recently or been watching something really good on TV, you’ll probably know it’s Christmas day tomorrow. This is obviously the best news ever and it means Santa is coming tonight. You probably also know that me and Teddy have been trying to meet Santa for several years now.

For a moment the other day we actually thought we had met Santa. We got taken to the shopping place and all of a sudden there he was. He was sitting at the bit where they usually have the fountain (I love the fountain) giving presents to children. But then Otter Keeper said this wasn’t the real Santa!!!…. and this was really just about the most disappointing thing that has ever happened to me and Teddy.

It’s now even more important that me and teddy meet the real Santa so that we can inform him about the impostor at the shopping centre. People shouldn’t pretend to be other people! Otter keeper says it’s OK sometimes, like if you’re an actor on TV.  But I think even they should try to refrain from pretending as it can just confuse people.

So this year out of urgent necessity we’ve come up with a really clever and well thought out plan to rendezvous with Santa. It’s a great plan …and it was all my idea. I’m very clever. We would tell you what it is but it’s got to be secret…and you might tell Santa….

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE !!!
(lots of love – Otter,Teddy and Otter Keeper) XXXX

One of the things I am best at is definitely colouring in. I know this because Otter Keeper is always really impressed whenever I show him anything I’ve done. Colouring in is like reading, it can be REALLY hard, but the more you practice the better you get. Me and Teddy try to aim for a minimum of 2 to 3 hours of colouring in each day. When I’m bigger I might be a professional “colourer in”, then I’d get to colour really important things like maps… or adverts.

Anyway the other day something happened that had never happened before. We were busy colouring a page from our favourite colouring book… it was quite a complex picture (Teddy couldn’t help and was just watching) when all of a sudden we ran out of colours! We had actually used them all! Someone who isn’t very experienced at colouring in would probably give up and get quite frustrated at this point. But instead, I had the best idea ever! Me and Teddy would just invent a new colour.

We ran the idea by Otter Keeper (we like to do this, as sometimes he has been known to give useful advice) but NOT today. He said it was ‘impossible to invent a new colour Otter’ as they had already all been invented. How silly of him, that’s probably what they said to the person who invented fluorescent highlighters before they existed. Fluorescent colours are magic – even Otter Keeper can’t explain them and he can explain almost anything.

We started off with our paints and mixed the red with the blue, this gave us purple which was a great start. We then mixed in some yellow which made a brownish type of colour which was also very promising. Me and Teddy both felt this brown was a really good brown. We tried mixing more colours and the brown changed to a slightly different brown. We realised we were really quite good at making browns.

After a long time mixing we got a bit bored of making browns. It was then that Teddy cleverly suggested we needed to “think outside of the box”. This is what Otter Keeper says sometimes when he’s trying to think of a solution to a difficult problem (It’s also a good thing to say if you’re making a secret den inside a cardboard box and get stuck thinking what to do next).

After a while of thinking outside of the box we realised it didn’t really help. However seeing as we’d been thinking about boxes we decided to leave the new colour till another day and transfer our efforts into making a spaceship out of an old shoebox . Otter Keeper gave it to us last week and me and Teddy have been wondering what to do with it for a while.  If you’re having trouble mixing a new colour, making a spaceship is a particularly good thing to do instead.

I’ll probably be tied up with my spaceship project for a while now. Teddy says he will try and find time to continue work on our new colour next week (I think he feels a bit guilty because he made several bad decisions during the mixing process – technically it’s mostly his fault we didn’t discover a new colour).

This week we watched a programme about a man that set himself a challenge to do a really long walk in the Antartic. The man got very cold because there was LOTS of snow (this is probably because someone had left a very big freezer door open and let all the snow escape (freezers are where snow comes from). But anyway me and Teddy decided we wanted to do a challenge and we had an exellent idea for what we would challenge… Bedtime! Me and Teddy are going to stay up ALL NIGHT.

Staying up all night is apparently really hard. Otter Keeper explained to me that in his opinion Otters (and Teddy’s) aren’t really designed to stay up all night. I politely pointed out to Otter Keeper that with the right training anything is possible. He laughed (he sometimes does this when i’m right about things)

What follows is a step by step account (the highs and the lows) of mine and Teddy’s epic journey.

6.31 We’re making preparations and gathering the last of the supplies. We are however missing a wafer bar. Teddy says he hasn’t eaten it but I’m not so sure. I don’t know if Teddy appreciates the magnitude of what we are about to do. He had better start taking this seriously.

8.30 We are now approaching usual bedtime. Everything is going well, both me and Teddy are in high spirits.

9.00 Otter Keeper says it’s now half an hour past our bedtime. Our training and preperation must be paying off because everything feels normal (it’s just been going on a bit longer than usual?)

9.38 Teddy says he’s starting to feel tired. I’ve given him some juice and now he’s wide awake.

10.04 It’s getting really quite late. Otter Keeper has been explaining to us just how long the nightime is. Teddy is finding it hard to deal with.

10.45 After refusing the challenge himself Otter Keeper has now gone to bed. The true nature of the task at hand is now sinking in. Otter Keeper has let us keep the light on which was kind of him – we miss him quite a lot already actually.

11.03 Teddy wants to go to sleep….. I’ve made him eat a wafer bar…

11.15 It’s very quiet here in the living room at this time, me and Teddy have been talking about how we are probably the first Otter or Teddy to have ever been up this late before. That is quite a special feeling. It feels good to be doing something important (like the man did on TV).

11.20 Teddy is having problems .. he’s being grumpy and keeps mumbling about going to to bed. I’m singing to him to keep up moral.

11.21 Feeding Teddy wafer bars as fast as possible, this makes it harder for him to talk about going to bed.

11.22 I’ve given Teddy the blanket to keep him warm. We’re both thinking about Otter Keeper lots.

11.25 It appears Teddy is asleep.

11.26 It’s very hard to stay awake.

11.28 I think it’s almost morning…it can’t be much longer now.

11.29 I’ve never noticed how soft Teddy is when you lay on… him …..

This week I made a new friend, his name is Monty… Monty is a moth. If you’ve never met a Moth before they are really great, they’re a bit like butterflies but without the colour and not quite as good (which is a bit of a shame). I think Monty would look very pretty if Otter Keeper would allow me to colour him in (he said I can’t!?)

Monty does have a bit of a problem though, he really REALLY likes our lamp. He likes it so much in fact that he’s actually been flying around it ever since we met him. Otter Keeper says this is normal behaviour for a moth.. and seeing as Monty is the only moth I know… I will have to conceed that Otter Keeper is right.

If you think about it, it’s actually quite understandable to run around something you like if you really REALLY like it. I love the park and often run around it… which is sort of the same thing. They also have rides in the park that go round and round … and that’s quite similar also.

You shouldn’t think about these things too much because it’s science and science can get really confusing. But the bottom line is if you like something…you should probably run around it so that everyone knows how much you like it.

I’m off with Teddy to go and run around Otter Keeper now because we really like him. Somehow I think this may annoy him but it serves him right because of what he said:

“you can’t colour in moths Otter, they are far too delicate.”

Otter Keeper KNOWS how good I am at colouring  in (I hardly ever go over the lines anymore – and if I do it’s usually down to bad advice from Teddy) – so it’s just him being mean again!

Wow, me and Teddy just had one of the best weekends EVER! That’s because this weekend was Easter weekend. Easter weekend would probably get a very commendable 9.2 out of 10 (because it’s not as good as Otter birthdays or Christmas but clearly beats Pancake day)

On Easter day everyone gets chocolate eggs that are delivered by a rabbit. This is actually quite a strange thing to happen, but if a strange thing is also a good thing (and it gives you chocolate) – it’s usually best not to question why it happens because it gets confusing.

It’s like trying to understand magnets. No one can actually understand magnets (not even Otter Keeper) but you have to accept that they are great and just play with them anyway!

All the chocolate eggs are fantastic, however there is one very big (and getting even bigger) problem with Easter. And that is Teddy. You see Teddy loves chocolate and when me and Otter Keeper are not looking he eats it at an alarming rate!


(I know he does this because I can’t possibly have eaten so many of my Easter eggs so far all by myself)

Otter Keeper has gone back to work today leaving only me to protect the Easter eggs from Teddy.Due to Teddy’s insatiable desire for chocolate this is an extremely hard job for just one person (clearly Otter Keeper is not taking Teddy’s problem seriously)

INFACT Otter Keeper is under some silly delusion that it is not Teddy at all that is eating the eggs… he says it’s me and that I’m just blaming it on Teddy!!

Sometimes Otter Keeper is like a magnet too… it’s just impossible to understand why they do the things they do.

If you want to leave me a comment (and please do because otters love comments – Keeper reads them to me and it makes me happy) about this story please go here: www.iamotter.co.uk/story

We immediately found Otter Keeper (Teddy was in a terrible state of concern) and fortunately he explained that Prince William is actually getting married to a completely different Kate. This made everything ok, and meant that me and Teddy were still huge fans of the royal family.

This was a happy ending but the event did highlight the need for a chart to identify Kates. This way if you meet one you can tell if it’s dangerous or not. Otter Keeper says all Kates are nice (even our next door neighbour). Otter Keeper is very VERY silly.

However, I’ve forgiven him because upon our request he has made us this chart. It’s not designed exactly as we wanted it… but it could still be of some use to anyone who might meet a Kate. And from what me and Teddy have learnt this week… there are lots of Kates (it gets quite confusing!)

Also I should mention that this week our Toasting Support Hotline will also be a Kate Advice Line. Due to the seriousness of Kate identification this service will be free, and will continue to be so until the royal wedding is out of the way. This period will obviously be a very testing time for identifying Kates.

The other day me and Teddy decided to start a business. We did this for two reasons. Firstly Otter Keeper just doesn’t give enough pocket money, which has been causing us a few problems recently. And secondly, well Teddy has actually forgotten what the second reason was (but it was a very good reason). Anyway Starting a business is really easy if you know what you want to do… We know exactly what we are going to do. We are setting up a Toast Consultancy company!

Otter Keeper said at this point we were getting a bit too excited,he warned us that starting a business is really quite hard. Apparently there are lots of things you need to think about, like tax and stuff like that. (Otter Keeper doesn’t mean to be a fun ruiner, it’s just the way he is!)

Anyway, As soon as Otter Keeper left for work this morning we got started on the business. We began by thinking about tax for a bit (like Otter Keeper told us to). We weren’t really sure what tax was but we definitely thought about it, and for a long time too. This got the business off to a great start!

Next we had to build our office. This would be hard for some people but me and Teddy are experts at this kind of thing. We did however run into a little trouble with our comms system. The problem is we only have one phone in the house and this would naturally now have to be commandeered to be our new business line.

This was unfortunate, but Teddy says he doesn’t mind telling any of Otter Keeper’s friends that phone up that if they don’t have a toast query could they please write Otter Keeper a letter and communicate in this fashion from now on. I said this could be a bit rude but Teddy insists it’s just business. He’s quite a ruthless business bear. If he continues like this I will have to put him under the sofa pillow again to calm him down.

Me and Teddy understand better than most how sad it can be when toasting goes wrong.Our business plan is to make sure that if someone is having trouble cooking toast correctly that they have access to the help they need. So we are offering two packages.

• Package 1 – Basic toasting support (10p per month) Includes access to our telephone helpline and our weekly handmade newsletter (full colour crayon)
• Package 2 -Toasting plus (15p per month) Includes the above but Teddy is also available for 24 hour emergency call outs (I would go but I might be busy – Teddy has more free time than me)

Additionally we also have a counselling service to help people deal with things when toasting goes wrong (like burnt toast) we help them come to terms with the fact that burnt toast does happen . A special technique we have is to explain that some people actually like burnt toast! (yes that is true!).
We’ve been practising on Giraffe – he saw Otter Keeper burn toast last week and he’s not been the same since. We’re making progress though!

Anyway I should go – Teddy needs more training before his first call out and hopefully any time now the first customer will ring Otter Keeper said he would tell some of his friends at his work about our business and we’ve also put a little poster in the downstairs window. With all that marketing It wont be long now before someone calls, and when they do me and Teddy will be ready because we really are very very good at running a business.

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