Reidksi's fish pond Part 2

Long suffering readers of this blog may remember our little local tragedy involving a goldfish pond and a hungry heron which I mentioned last Septemberhere. To save anyone the bother of reading that whole saga, we had thought that Reidski had two goldfish in his pond. Then after months of quite a lot of work involving getting cleaner water into what had been a rancid and neglected garden pond, finding out that there were actually three, but not for long as a heron came along and took two of them. What I didn't record at the time (too painful don't you know) was that fish number three also disappeared very shortly after the loss of fishes numbered one and two.

What had been so surprising about finding these fish in the first place was the fact that they must have survived for years on end without any care being taken of them whatsoever. Many years ago the house was owned by a garden proud old lady and it would have been her (according to the next door neighbour) who got the fish. She died a long time ago, and the house was converted into two flats, with tenants coming and going, but never at any stage going into the garden and doing anything with it. The garden fell into a state of disrepair - and the fish were forgotten.

The pond, empty of fish, over winter had returned to its filthy state, and this weekend we resolved to empty it and start again. Armed with buckets and with the assistance of him who Reidski used to refer to as The Boy, but who would now more accurately be described as The Strapping Great Teenager, we got started. A lovely job.... if your idea of fun is collecting gallons of smelly black water and emptying it all over a garden.

Inevitably we were faced with horrors in the depths of the murky water. By which I mean lots of frogs - all doing what comes naturally to frogs in spring time, making for lots of beasts with two backs.


As we got closer to the bottom of the pond it obviously became more and more difficult to scoop water out, and we were on the verge of stopping when TSGT exclaims that he can see a fish. And lo - there was a veritable miracle. Fish number three - for it was most definitely he(or I suppose she) - had in fact escaped the hungry heron - and had been hiding in the depths of the pond ever since. Reidski has named him/her Wanda (as in a fish called), but I call him/her Wonder. The wonder being the extraordinary longevity and survival instincts of this particular fish.

I am happy to report that Wonder/ Wanda has now been joined by five new pond mates and, now being protected by netting from evil herons, can be seen swimming - with a certain understandable swagger - once more in Reidksi's nice clean garden pond.