Jodi meets.........a polar bear

“Grrrrr”, said the polar bear as Jodi clambered out of his pod. Not wanting to offend, Jodi “grrrr’d” back. This exchange went on for some time, until the bear ran out of grrrr’s and decided to say exactly what was what “I suppose your flying ice floe” (he concluded Jodis’ pod must be an ice floe as he couldn’t equate travelling on anything else) “is a one off? Not that I care, I mean it’s alright if you can get hold of one, but when you’ve been waiting for a passing ice floe to take you to the fishing grounds for days, it’s a bit rich to see you breeze in from god knows where in an exclusive flying floe” he concluded with sanctimonious “hmmm”.

 Jodi tried to explain that it wasn’t exactly an ice floe nor was it exclusive – just not widely available in the Arctic regions. But the bear ignored Jodi’s explanations and continued on his rant, “I mean, time was you could hang around a fair while, admitted, but then at least three would turn up at once, and large ones at that!, now your lucky if you can hop on a passing floe once in a blue moon, never mind it being the size of an ice cube, I mean look at me, I’m hardly a size 8, and waiting around for days at my age: It’s downright disgraceful!”.

 Jodi was beginning to gather that transport was an issue in these parts. So he asked the bear exactly where he was going, the bear waved a paw in the direction of the distant sea, Jodi looked at his pod and looked at the size of the bear hmmm….

A few tugs and strategic pushes later and Jodi had managed to squeeze the bear into his pod, he did think he was somewhat rude at first, but given the situation and lack of available solutions he could see his point.

 So, with both their faces pressed up against the front of the pod they whizzed their way in the direction of the fishing lands. After a somewhat difficult landing, (as the pod was definitely creaking under the excess baggage), the bear squeezed through the tiny door and popped out landing in a furry heap on the ice. He thanked Jodi profusely and said if he were ever heading back this way he would be very welcome to stay in his den. Jodi waved, and looked around him, while he was squinting into the bright sunlight he could see the whiteness of the ice was melting into the sea, and, peering into the distance he could see a rocky looking island that reminded him of home.

He noted that the bears were having diminishing transport problems, without any obvious reason. Time to move on, he thought, and see what was causing their woes…