Keen Jasper invents a lean-green-road- sailing-machine

Hello Boys and Girls, LIKE you all, I love to do my bit for the environment but my latest effort, while absolutely super-duper brilliant, had one little flaw which caused a big problem. I got the idea from seeing all those Green Flags fluttering proudly in the breeze outside your schools. I said to Aunt Molly: â€Å“If all those boys and girls can do their bit for the environment then maybe I should think about getting a flag for Rose Cottage.â€Â Aunt Molly said the only flag we needed outside our house was a danger flag to warn people when I was messing with one of my daft experiments. Will she ever forget about the time I blew up the shed? I was trying to build a mini-helicopter that I could send to the shop by remote control. The plan was that Iâ€â„¢d arrange for Mickey in the shop to put a cake and a few buns and maybe a bit of chocolate in the basket of the helicopter. Then Iâ€â„¢d bring it back by remote control and land it out near the wood. That way Aunt Molly wouldnâ€â„¢t know about my little snacks. Unfortunately it didnâ€â„¢t quite work out as planned. Well to be honest it didnâ€â„¢t work out at all. It blew up and took most of the shed with it. â€Å“Thatâ€â„¢s what you get for being sneaky and a greedy-guts,â€Â Aunt Molly said and she had no sympathy for me. Sailing to the Shop BUT my new idea to help the environment was to rig up a sail on my bicycle and sail to town and wherever I wanted to go. I thought if I didnâ€â„¢t have to use my car then I wouldnâ€â„¢t be using petrol and there would be less fumes polluting the air. Anyway, I got busy on the project. First I had to promise Aunt Molly there would be no petrol or matches involved. I know you all know not to play with such things. They were the cause of my little mishap with the mini-helicopter so take my advice, steer well clear of them. Soon I got my lean-green-road-sailing-machine ready for action. I converted my bicycle (bi means two) into a tricycle (tri means three) and rigged up a sail. It looked just great and this time I had a check-list so was pretty sure all was in order â€â€ although I had a feeling I might have forgotten something. â€Å“Never mind, itâ€â„¢s probably not important,â€Â I thought as I set sail for the shops. It worked a dream. All the neighbours came out to see me sail by on the road. The children waved and ran alongside, the dogs barked and I saw some of the grown-ups shake their heads from side to side. Iâ€â„¢m sure they were thinking what a genius I was and were in awe of my beautiful tricycle sailing machine. Maybe some were even jealous? The wind was in the sail as I went up the hill before the shop. There was no noise and no smell or fumes and everything was going just great. Until I got to the top of the hill that is. As I started down the other side and began to pick up speed I suddenly remembered what Iâ€â„¢d forgotten. Brakes! Going faster and faster down the hill I wished Iâ€â„¢d checked my checklist more carefully. All I could do was close my eyes as I sailed at full speed into the vegetable display outside Mickeyâ€â„¢s. Oh dear. There were spuds and bits of tricycle and turnips and sail and cabbage and me everywhere. Mickey was out like a flash. â€Å“Jasper, you big eejit,â€Â he roared, â€Å“what are you at now and look at all my vegetables!â€Â He helped me up and I helped him tidy everything and apologised. In the end he was fine because Mickey has two children involved in their green school project and heâ€â„¢s all for helping clean up the environment. We all had a good laugh in the end but he made me promise to find safer ways of going green in the future. Oh well â€â€ back to the drawing board! Bye for now, Uncle Jasper