And in case you're interested that story ended with us running for our lives with the Doctor turning every few moment in attempt to shut them off with the sonic screwdriver. My top got a bit singed. Such is life, with the Doctor. And here we are just for gratuitous outreaching to my... probably very small... audience. Hello!
And there was a point to that, cause we landed in the middle of a field on another planet (we know cause we checked) with grazing cows and a product that looked something like cotton, only it was magenta and much more flaxy. I wasn't sure if it was to make clothes or to eat. Maybe both.
Of course, and I may be telling this story a bit backwards, we weren't planning on landing on a field in on a planet with cows and flaxy cotton plants. We were trying to go to a planet call Crepsculo in Earths fifty-first century where a band was playing that the Doctor said was brilliant and perfect for a nice relaxing non-dream inducing fun time out. His words not mine.
"What are they called again?" I asked, zipping up my knee high boots, cause let's face it, I look foxy in my little denim skirt. I was trying to look cool, obviously, concerts on lounge planets and all. Cause apparently Crepsculo is like one big slinky jazz bar. Not that I've ever been to a jazz bar really, mostly pubs for me and mine, but that's what the Doctor said. Apparently he's been to many jazz bars, I get a very funny mental picture of him playing the saxophone with Miles Davis whenever I try to picture this. Though, this particular band was not jazz. They were just playing in a 21st Century Earth like jazz lounge type venue. I might be able to describe it better if I ever made it there. Which I didn't.
The Doctor, of course, was dancing around the console, flicking switches and and pulling levers no doubt already playing the songs of said band in his head. "Flodder's Gain," he answered.
I shook my head, "Flodder's Gain, what does that mean?"
He paused and pull that face he does when he's thinking... usually over something important but it's the same face. "You know, I have no idea."
I laughed and then he laughed and then he adjusted a few more dials and the TARDIS jerked it's way to what was supposed to Crepsculo and turned out to be the farming colony of Ringgoolu.
I laughed even harder.
But it was pretty clear that these cows were not bionic. In fact they looked a lot like this:
They sort of blinked at us, materialising out of nowhere was bound to confuse them… they saw cows are rather smart you know. Then they just went back to eating their magenta flaxy stuff. You could tell that it still gave the Doctor the hebegebes though, which was WELL hilarious. Same look of disgust he has for cats, really, after New Earth and all. But he didn’t have long to look upset because it was at this moment that a blue fellow appeared riding some sort of golf cartish hovercraft thing and started yelling at us.
“Why are you landing in the Websing fields?!” he shouted, “We have very specific landing regulations on Ringgoolu, you’ll find if you’ve read the brochure! You can’t just land willy nilly!”
The Doctor’s eyes sort of lit up and he did that grinny thing he does when he’s very excited and he said; “Ringgoolu. You don’t mean the Ringgoolu which is home to Zebdinger’s Zumulous Zweets?!”
“Of course I do!” said Mr Blue, “What other Ringgoolu is there?”
The Doctor looked like he was about to correct him but refrained cause I leaned my head towards him and said; “Zebdinger’s Zumulous Zweets?”
“Remember those chocolate bubbles we got at that bazaar?”
I did, they were amazing. They were like bubbles you blow but made of chocolate and we spent hours trying to catch them on our tongues. Which got the TARDIS, and ourselves, rather messy, but was soooo worth it. I nodded.
“Zebdinger’s Zumulous Zweets!” he said and I squeed. “And that’s not all they’ve got, they make hundreds-”
“Thousands,” corrected Mr Blue.
“Thousands of sweets, mostly chocolate. Guess she knew just what we needed,” he said and pat the blue doors of the TARDIS. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a tour, you know, maybe… free samples?” He did that ear tugging thing here.
“Of course we have, hence visitors. Now would you mind moving your vehicle? We’ve lost far too much of the Gurgle plant (magenta flaxy stuff) to spare any by people landing in the middle of our fields!”
I half expected him to agrue that the TARDIS was no mere vehicle but I suppose it was down to the power of chocolate that prevented him. We moved the TARDIS to the visitor’s parking and then started our tour.
And seriously, this place was like how I imagined Willy Wonka’s place to look like until I saw the film. There wasn’t a field of candy mushrooms or anything, but there was a chocolate waterfall. And they had a chocolate castle too, made entirely of bricks of chocolate. It was kept in a room that was temperature controlled so all there was to worry about was bites being taken out of it, which there were hefty fines for. It had a molten chocolate moat and everything. The Doctor looked positively horrified that he couldn’t eat any, but I read in the brochure that they sold replicas at the little shop. Think like this, only, well... life size:
I was starting to think that maybe we’d managed to land somewhere where we weren’t going to have to fix something or save someone or… run from a giant shaggy monster that flew out of a downstairs corridor that might not technically have been on the tour but was far too interesting, what with the Chocolate Experiments: Do Not Enter sign and the locked door which means nothing to a man with a sonic screwdriver. Alas I was wrong.
It sort of looked like a dog, but about the size of a council house and with tonnes of hair in thick ropes over it’s whole body. It didn’t even look mean, but it sure was scary what with the leaping and the growls and stuff.
We obviously took a wrong turn, it wasn’t like everything was labeled, so we might’ve gone right when we should have gone left because we were well lost right quick and the sonic doesn’t have a ‘locate chocolate experiments’ setting. Instead we ended up in some old abandoned underground tunnels that looked like they might’ve carried things in and out of the factory at some point but had been long out of use. Anyway it was at this point, as we were chatting about a chocolate pie eating contest the Doctor had been in a couple hundred years ago and how he’d only lost cause a Poraxian had cheated, that this thing came flying at us. I ducked, and am a little embarrassed to say I screamed, and the Doctor held the sonic in front of us like he could use it as a weapon at all.
“What is that?!” I cried.
He shook his head, “I have no idea.”
“Oh, great.” I said.
“Run!” he said back.
So we ran, and of course the Doctor had a brilliant plan about trapping him in the dungeons of the chocolate castle that involved using me as bait and jumping out of a window and directly into the chocolate moat while the Doctor sealed off the chocolate dungeon doors.
Turns out it was called a Tilden Woo, a pack animal used on a planet called Bumden Minor that has escaped it’s shackles while being transferred to an Earth Colony on Eros II and gotten loose on Ringgoolu, which wouldn’t have been too bad except for the fact that Websing was their favourite food, and also the secret ingredient to Zebdingers Zumulous Zweets… the cows ate it and their milk was sweeter. We were told this in secrecy and swore not to tell, but I figure not of my readers are going to be in that time or galaxy so I am fairly certain it’s okay.
As a reward for catching the Tilden we received a free years supply of Zebinger’s products plus however much we could fit in our vehicle (we both laughed profusely over that but didn’t share the joke, suffice it to say, having seen our vehicle, Mr Blue didn’t think it’d be that much). We took cart loads. Gifts, all that… plus, well they had chocolate bananas, I am sure you can see how that would go down. We waved goodbye to everyone there and the Doctor spun us into the Time Vortex before we exchanged glances and then ran to the new formed chocolate storing room to eat a chocolate castle complete with moat replica.
Until next time.
