Winnipeg emigrated to Britain along with her owner, Captain Harry Colebourn, an army veterinary surgeon in the Canadian military. In 1915, as World War I raged, Captain Colebourn was sent to the front in France. Unable to take Winnipeg along, he donated her to the London Zoo, where she quickly became a star attraction. Colebourn purchased Winnipeg in White River, Ontario from a trapper who had killed the cub's mother for $20. She was named after Colebourn's hometown. In 1989, White River erected a statue commemorating Winnie-the-Pooh's namesake. (There was a bit of a to-do about this, as the Mouse believed only they had the right to erect statues and use the name Winnie-the-Pooh. As it is their most popular and profitable franchises, I can sort of see their point - OK, not really!) "Winnie" was surreptitiously brought to England with her owner, and gained unofficial recognition as The Fort Garry Horse regimental mascot. Colebourn left Winnie at the London Zoo while he and his unit were in France; after the war she was officially donated to the zoo, as she had become a much loved attraction there. Pooh the swan appears as a character in its own right in When We Were Very Young. After the war, Colebourn did post-graduate work at the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in London, England and then, in 1920, he returned to Canada and started a private practice in Winnipeg. He retired in 1945 and died in September, 1947. He is buried in Brookside Cemetery in Winnipeg. There is presently a statue of Colebourn and Winnie in Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo. As to the bear's colour - this was very newly post-Victorian-age, and black was a colour of mourning, not suitable for children's toys. I actually remember an episode of the American version of Antiques Roadshow where an expert got excited about valuating a black Steiff toy bear, so rare are they. The honey brown colour was the norm. The Pooh stories have been translated into many languages, including Alexander Lenard's Latin translation, Winnie ille Pu, which was first published in 1958, and, in 1960, became the only Latin book ever to have been featured on the New York Times Best Seller List. In popular film adaptations, Pooh Bear has been voiced by actors Sterling Holloway, Hal Smith and Jim Cummings in English, Yevgeny Leonov in Russian, and Shun Yashiro and Sukekiyo Kameyama in Japanese. So, there you go - from humble beginnings, a beloved cast of characters is born. Now to stars: I think everyone deserves stars today!! Thanks to All for playing - see you next week. Nancy. Here is a link that might be useful: One-Minute Story of Winnie the Pooh

Made gluten free Sweeney meat pies, v2. Added 2 tsp xantham gum to each 1 cup of Bob's Red Mill gluten free flour. Otherwise dough was prepared as before - cold butter, ice water, salt, sugar, and refrigerated. Filling was 1 part tinker, 1 part tailor - oh, okay, beef and pork - plus onion, carrot, garlic, ginger, Guiness Stout, a bit of red wine, various herbage, salt and pepper, cayenne pepper, Worcestershire Sauce, tomato paste, anchovy paste, and milk. Cooked slow, thickened with gluten free flour. This dough was easier to work with. Rolled out and formed into individual purse pies, not as sturdy as wheat flour pie dough, but not bad. Then - big problem! I think my oven is breaking down. Hours and hours of pre-heating and it wouldn't go above 320F. The only way to get more heat was to use "high broil". So I broiled my pastie pies. Definitely was not Plan A. With a bit of aluminum foil, it worked, kind of. The gluten free crust didn't achieve a flakey golden brown, but it did get browned and a bit crisp. And it held together fine, the pies were plenty sturdy enough to pick up and eat one-handed. Heck, I dropped one on the floor and it still held together well enough to eat. Anyway, they looked like: All ten disappeared, my son ate four. So I'll keep working on this dish, it has promise. I tried brushing on melted butter to get a golden brown, but it didn't work, so I will try an egg wash next - make sense? I wonder if adding some yeast will yield a lighter texture to the crust. Now, what do to about the blasted oven?

I read this on another site: Worth noting that someone switched a bunch of the colors. So I guess it's art-imitates-life-imitating-art. But still. Wish I felt like watching Cinderella to see what those colors were actually. lol I'm not sure the first picture is from that movie though... I thought Cinderella had blond hair.

I was born several months before Pearl Harbor and WWII. My mother had been a teacher before she married. Many pregnancies and 4 children kept her at home in the traditional stay at home mom role. Laundry was a two or three day chore. She baked our bread and cooked all our meals. She was an equal partner with my father in the leadership of our family. All of us kids knew we would be earning a college degree, giving us career choices to provide for us and to serve us in any financial emergency. But the huge difference occurred when I was in college. The girls graduating in May were marrying in June, and they were all on the pill, something I had never heard of. Now, a woman could work, plan for her family’s financial security, and decide when to have a baby and when, if ever, to have another. I remember when DH and I eloped at spring break. I was finishing my Master’s degree that summer and talked with the older women in my department about my continuing career plans. They would laugh at me, remembering their own early years as a bride and explain that the following year I would be surely on maternity leave. “No, I would explain. That won’t happen. I’ve got The Pill.” They were always taken aback. There had been no such option for them and most of them had returned to teaching only recently after taking leave for years to raise their kids. By the time I was ready to have our kids and be a stay at home mom, the pill had allowed us to build a nest egg for our family to give us a solid foundation and to allow me to be home to raise our children.