TIDDLELEGS, CHEENA AND ROTTEN RO

I thought that readers might like one of the stories from the Garden Road series - children's storybooks that could have been published in the 1960s. Here's an except for your reading pleasure.

Tiddlelegs, Cheena, and Rotten Ro were three brothers with a grand idea. "We'll make a band!" declared Tiddlelegs, the oldest, his eyes gleaming with ambition. Cheena, the middle brother, grinned. Rotten Ro, the youngest, clapped his hands with glee.

They rummaged through the garage, pulling out old cardboard boxes of all shapes and sizes. String, elastic bands, and empty toilet paper rolls became their treasures. Soon, a cacophony of plunks, twangs, and thumps filled the air as they crafted their instruments. Tiddlelegs made a giant drum from a removal box. Cheena stretched elastic bands over a shoebox for a stringy guitar. And Rotten Ro, with great determination, created a shaker from a cereal box filled with dried beans.

"Right," said Tiddlelegs, striking his drum with a flourish. "Our first song! A rock anthem about… us!"
But almost immediately, their harmonious vision dissolved. "My drum is the loudest!" boomed Tiddlelegs.
"But my guitar has the coolest sound!" Cheena retorted, plucking his elastic bands.
"It's all my boxes and string!" Rotten Ro wailed, his face scrunching up.
The argument escalated, their carefully crafted instruments forgotten. "That's it!" yelled Tiddlelegs, throwing his drumsticks down. "You two are fired! The band is over!"
Cheena shrugged. "I don't care," he said, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "Mum and Dad will make two new brothers for me to play with soon enough."
Rotten Ro, however, did care. He threw himself on the floor, kicking and screaming. "They're mine! All the boxes and string are mine!" he bellowed, gathering every piece of their failed band project into his arms and storming off home.

Later that evening, exhausted from their musical drama and subsequent argument, the brothers stumbled into their shared room. Tiddlelegs climbed into the top bunk, pulling his blanket up to his chin. Cheena settled into the lower bunk, already half-asleep. Rotten Ro, who didn't have a bunk, found his usual spot on the floor beneath Cheena's bed, curling up with a sigh. Soon, the room was filled with the gentle sounds of sleepy breathing.

The next morning, with the forgetfulness only brothers possess, the previous day's arguments were just a distant echo. Rotten Ro, bursting with excitement, ran into the kitchen. "Look what I've got!" he shouted, holding up a brand new, shiny rugby ball.
"Awesome!" yelled Cheena.
"Let's go to the Botanical Gardens!" suggested Tiddlelegs. "We can play a huge game!"
And so, off they went, the three brothers, full of renewed energy and high spirits, eager for a game of rugby amidst the beautiful flowers and towering trees of the Botanical Gardens. They kicked the ball, chased each other across the wide-open lawns, and giggled as they dodged imaginary opponents.

But just as the game was reaching its peak, an argument began. "You cheated!" yelled Tiddlelegs.
"No, I didn't, you just missed it!" Cheena protested.
"It's my ball!" Rotten Ro shrieked, tears welling up in his eyes. He threw the rugby ball to the ground, stomped his foot, and, in a familiar flurry of indignation, collected his ball and stormed off home, leaving Tiddlelegs and Cheena alone in the vast expanse of the Botanical Gardens, once again at an impasse....

... to be continued?

SWINGING THE POLE

 "Anyway keep in mind the concept of going to a place devoid of God and using a small flat section on the end of a long pole to impart energy to a hard sphere so it is eventually impelled to fall into a chasm. By the grace of God I will practice the difficult art of swinging the pole so that it contacts the sphere in readiness."

- Said Robert in a rather - let's be kind and say 'cryptic - comment yesterday on an earlier post.

His god only knows what that meant but I hope that this new-found activity of his is seemly.

I SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO THE OLD GUY ...

 ... not my Dad this time although I regret not listening a lot more to his stories of when he was overseas during WW2.

"Listen up son"

No, I'm talking about Richard 'Sox' Prowse who I had lunch with yesterday.

On leaving I said I was going to a nearby New World supermarket to buy some wine - Elephant In The Room chardonnay. Richard proceeded to give me lengthy directions to the nearest one in Lower Hutt. I pretended to listen while checking Google Maps and starting a direction App on my phone. When I drove off though the App worked if you looked at the phone but would not connect to the in-car audio system nor even give voice directions from the phone. I don't drive while looking at a phone so just headed off in the direction of Lower Hutt and drove around aimlessly for a while. Not spying a New World supermarket I eventually found my way to the motorway and went home.

I should have listened to the old guy.

HERE’S A LITTLE CONUNDRUM

 The three bloggers are meeting for lunch tomorrow to celebrate their birthdays.

All three were born in August.

The Curmudgeon on the 8th of August.

Richard of Richard’s Bass Bag on the 20th of August.

Robert of Walk With Me Rob on the 19th of August.

Which one is going to Hell?

IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?

Robert of the blog Walk With Me Rob wrote copied and pasted a long diatribe on The Fermi Paradox and  why we never see aliens. You could read it: HERE IF YOU DARE and then see why his blog address is bobsboringbanterings.blogspot.com

Don't say you weren't warned.

"What's The Fermi Paradox all about TC?" I hear you ask. Well, The Fermi Paradox asks why we never see  aliens as in beings from other planets despite there being umpteen trillions of them (planets) in the universe.

 This doesn't mean that there are no populated planets nor travelling 'aliens', just that we haven't been made aware of any yet. There are a lot of reasons for this as Robert wrote copied and pasted being:

• Space and time are brutally large
• Life might be common, but complex intelligent life is not
• Intelligence might be self-limiting 
• We are looking the wrong way
• They really aren't there
• They are there, but physics isolates us
• Lots of other complicated nonsense that Robert copied because he couldn't get back to sleep this morning.

I prefer to be open-minded as to the possibility of other intelligent life forms but pragmatic as to why we haven't seen any of them so far:

• Intelligent life forms on other planets have watched and analysed Earth's communications like internet porn sites, social media, real media, blogs, podcasts, political broadcasts, American 'comedy' TV, reality TV and the films that Richard watches starring Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Arnie Schwarzenegger, Liam Neeson etc and have decided that they don't really want to communicate with us
• They have discovered Earth but have decided that it's too dangerous and unstable and can't quite figure out why Earthlings haven't already nuked themselves out of existence
• They are bewildered that self-proclaiming intelligent life forms believe in the nonsense that religions promulgate especially Catholics and are a little bit jealous that they themselves haven't mastered transubstantiation, bi-location, virgin births and resurrection as it would save them light years of travel. They wish that it was true
• They think that Earth inhabitants are way too primitive to bother with.

HOME AGAIN

 It's nice to be home and I wonder why we often go away.

What's the point of paying a lot of money to fly on a plane for hours in cramped conditions and then spend a fortune staying in different hotels that, while well-appointed don't have the creature comforts of home?

I now, I know, The Old Girl likes to travel and that's why she does it and I go along sometimes.

Saying that though I did enjoy our trip having had the chance to see parts of Australia that were new to me. The Ghan train trip was excellent and we had some adventures on the way.

Robert might be thinking the same thing as he posted a comment on my previous post:

Maybe he just got his credit card bills from his trip to The Phillipines.

I'm not looking forward to receiving ours.

"EXTERMINATE!"

 

We had a laugh at the baggage pick up area of Wellington Airport last night as the 'Dalek' roamed about checking out the passengers.

With the addition of a couple of wands/arms at the front it would be even more alarming.

COLD, COLD, COLD

 

After some warm winter weather in Australia we've come back to earth landing in Wellington's cold weather.

I think that, for us, last night was the coldest it's been in our new house requiring three layers on the bed.

Not these:

As you readers have been used to Richard's juvenile humour and will need time to acclimatise to superior humour this joke will keep you going

Today will be a slow day getting sorted - washing clothes, shopping for fresh food supplies and vegging out with hopefully a couple of gentle blog posts to try and get the community back on track.

It's a start

Darwin

 We managed to make our connecting flight from Brisbane to Darwin last night even though the flight from Wellington to Brisbane was delayed by an hour and a half.

As we had to collect our bags and clear Customs it was a rush and run situation in a very large airport. As a consequence my gammy knee is now ‘playing up’ and I’m hoping that it will be OK for our Kakadu hike tomorrow. I’m dosing on paracetamol and think the swelling is going down.

Today we checked out Darwin and went on an information tour that covered the town’s establishment highlights, the Japanese bombing in 1942 and the devastating cyclone in 1974. I’m glad we did this.

It’s hot here at 31 degrees which I gather is the default setting for Daarwin most days of the year. It’ll make the hike tomorrow challenging.

I’m using my iPad to blog so won’t be posting images I’m sorry to say. Maybe Richard can do so for me:

* Old pictures of Darwin ( including Charles Darwin with a witty comment)

* Images of the Japanese bombing raids

* Pictures of Cyclone Tracey and the evacuation 

* A random and funny photo of Robert just for laughs

* Throw in a photo of yourself ‘tending the home fires’ all on your own.

Thanks.

 We're off into the wild blue yonder this afternoon.

"Stay back Richard and Robert - you can't come with us"

Robert aka Phileas Fogg no doubt with all of his travel experience could come in handy though:

Put lots of stickers on it so you can see someone walking off with it in the luggage handling area. Don't use padlocks as they invite curiosity. Did you know a pen can open a zipper. Instead use zip ties. Put your valuables in a jacket with zip pockets to avoid pick pockets.
- Rob 3 August 2026 at 18:28

I found on my one and only overseas trip that it's all about weight. Your main bag goes in the luggage. (Tip: make this bag brightly coloured and easily regonizable (sic) without lots of padlocks that make it seem worth stealing). You take a smaller suitcase that is under about 7kg that goes in the over head locker on the aeroplane. You can take a back back so long as it fits under the seat in front of you and also your own shoulder bag for passport etc.
- Rob 5 July 2026 at 18:49

Wear a woolly shirt.
- Rob 25 July 2026 at 06:28

It'll be a long trawl to Darwin as we arrive Oz time at about 1AM tomorrow.

We'll have Thursday to meander around the city before our Kakadu adventure on Thursday which might prove to be strenuous.

The increased walking I've been doing should help though. The Old Girl walks to and from work each day so she should be in good shape for it.

After that it should be easily sailing - well, riding the rail really as we'll be 4 days on the GHAN train. I've arranged some side trips at the three stops that we'll be making but I think that these will be pretty easy - suitable for oldies.

Hooroo!