I have had some absolutely first-class news this morning! Absolutely first-class, even better than a minnow sandwich, if you can believe that!
I have had Brian Russetcoat and Debbie Shorttail in here all morning giving me an extremely enthusiastic and somewhat disjointed report on the goings on in the temporal department overnight. From what I can gather it is marvellous news for the development of time travel and the damned hamster problem! They were extremely over excited and kept talking over each other, I can only hope they choose one of them to submit the written report! Anyway I will tell you as much as I could glean from all the garbled words.
Late last night the temporal team was working on the latest time travel experiments, they do this at night in case of temporal calamity I am told. They were busily sending small inanimate objects forward a minute or so as a test, they have to go forward I am told or they have no way of knowing if it worked. Apparently it is harder with inanimate objects…they can’t swim you know. Anyway everything was going along swimmingly so to speak, conkers were turning up with regularity and mostly un-smooshed now. Smooshed. I am assured, is the technical term for the state in which things arrive when time travel goes awry. Cedric was powering the wheel quite happily as long as seeds appeared at regular intervals. Things were looking extremely promising until, quite out of the blue, the other Cedric appeared. He couldn’t sleep apparently and wanted to see if he could help…
This is where Brian and Debbie got quite uproarious and everything got quite jumbled. From what I can gather, Cedric who was keen to be helpful and possibly feeling slightly mischievous, leaped into the wheel at the opposite side to the other Cedric and started galloping as fast as his paws wold carry him. Then, I am lead to believe, several things happened at once:
Debbie dashed under her workstation to try and catch a Cedric and prevent a hamster apocalypse and Brian bounded over his seat to attempt to stop Debbie’s research plunging 2 minutes into the future in the time tank. Somewhere in this commotion the time dial got knocked from 2 minutes to 1 month. The real problem arose because in his enthusiasm, or to be a menace, Cedric jumped into the wheel and galloped in the opposite direction. This had, apparently, two outcomes, it reversed the power wheel and consequently the time flow direction, and caused the other Cedric to tumble over. Debbie somehow managed to knock the Cedric out of the path of annihilation and into the time tank. Where he was washed backwards in time 1 month.
The temporal team are ecstatic about this, at least they were once they had picked themselves up and collected themselves. Apparently this conclusively proves that live creatures can travel in time using the time flow tank without any ill effects. I didn’t see the connection myself, but it was pointed out that 1 month ago was the point in time where the second Cedric had appeared in the temporal department, soggy and babbling about falling in a tank.
I can’t say I understand most of this myself, but that is what the research team are for. Mind you, neither of them could give me a satisfactory explanation as to how we only ended up with two Cedrics because we had two Cedrics. I am not asking too many questions about it however, as we now only have one damned hamster and that, to my mind, is a much better state of affairs! No one got annihilated either which is even better, there is a lot of paperwork involved in annihilation clean up!
Now that the whole thing has been proven a success, we are looking for volunteer otters to travel a short way into the future. If any of you out there would like to take part, contact my office directly!

I’m not sure I qualify, since I’m not an otter and what I have in mind isn’t a short time but, say 5 or 10 years, just to check out the results of a couple of decisions I have to make. But talk to them, will you? I had no idea an opportunity like this would brush past like this.
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I think once we have tested in a couple of otters…and if you are a strong swimmer it will be possible…
I’ll have a word with Brian Russetcoat for you 🙂
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Okay, the swimming thing’s going to be a problem. How about shallow water? I’m short, but I am taller than your average otter.
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I think you will mainly be pushed by the water/time flow and you do have a height advantage over an otter…
We’ll get you one of those floating rubber ring things and you’ll be fine 🙂
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Very good news about smooshing – a smoothed Cedric would have been a disaster! At least this explains why we now have two of them. Although, something tells me that more seeds will be needed. Those Cedrics will not work on empty tummies! (Lovely little furry tummies!)
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I was very pleased that they sorted the smooshing problem out before Cedric made his journey…
I may have created a never ending Cedric loop though…
No one should work on an empty tummy!!
Especially not the little furry tummies!
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I’m not sure how I feel about a never ending Cedric loop… I think I am quite pleased but apprehensive… where will all the seeds come from?!
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I think it will be ok if original Cedric falls in the tank each time and future Cedric carries on…
I can always send one of them seed foraging…
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I will start collecting seeds to aid the cause. Can’t have hungry Cedrics!
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Excellent work!
Who knows what mischief a hungry Cedric would get up to! 😱
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I suddenly have an uneasy feeling there could be yet more Cedrics tumbling out of the temporal woodwork. perhaps it might be worth sending a few kilos of seeds back to see if they can be duplicated (in an un-smooshed manner) as well, just in case.
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I was hoping to end up with one Cedric for the safety of the univers, but I seem to have created a never ending Cedric loop and a couple of paradoxes along the way…
so I think sending seeds back may well be an excellent idea, just in case we end up wit h sever more Cedrics turning up from who knows when…
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‘a never ending Cedric loop’ sounds more than ominous. The collective term for hamsters may prove to be ‘a plague’…
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I can only imagine what Lutra Longwhiskers’s reaction to a plague of hamsters might be!!
although we very well might find out as they are proving quite hard to control!
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My cats have again volunteered to help if needed…
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Marvellous news!
I’m sure between your cats and my cats, we can deal with the Cedric plague if necessary…
I am hoping it doesn’t come to that though…
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Let’s hope not.
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poor Cedrics…I’m sure they’ll find a use!
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Is the never-ending Cedric loop in the past now though? Whether original or duplicate, only one now remains?
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Yes that is true, it is a past perpetual Cedric loop…
unless they start popping out it the woodwork anew, we are safe from the double Cedric menace…
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