In search of fish…

 

There is only one thing to do when you are boycotting The Archers and that is to cut back the bramble over the pond.

The trouble is to reach it I have to lower the level of the pond by countless gallons.

So determined, off I trudged.

“I’m off to empty the pond,” I tell The Teenager. “Can you check on me from time to time and make sure that I haven’t fallen in?”

The Teenager gapes at me, “Do I have to?” he moans.

“Well, I could slip and hit my head on the concrete and then be just floating there face down in the water,” I explain.

I am cursed with an overactive imagination.

He’s now really worried. He’s grown up with a succession of such worst case scenarios and it’s a wonder that he isn’t in therapy. “Okay,” he says, wide-eyed.

Once kitted up for the great outdoors I grab bowls and a saucepan. It’s then when I get to the pond that I realise that things are seriously amiss. Two of my beautiful large goldfish are floating on their sides. Despite the tennis ball in the pond to stop it from freezing over they must have been caught in the recent ice. I lift one out. Its eyes are white. It is dead. The other one is barely alive. Gently, I lift it out and place it into a large bowl whereupon it floats up to the surface. It is dying.

I realise that the wind has blown more leaves into the pond than usual, and that the water quality is now very poor. The water stinks as I ladle it out. Worse, I find a yearling goldfish which had striking black markings that is also dead. Then I find dead frogs and worst of all I find lots of tiny dead goldfish. Miserably I ladle out brackish water until the light fails.

The following day I put white-tac in the holes of the black re-cycling bins, fill it with fresh water and transfer the large dying goldfish into it.

Then grimly I continue the ladling, checking every pan-ful to see if any small fish are still alive. White eyes confirm that they are not. Cats are watching me with fascination. They like the way I’m placing little fishy meals like shiny wrapped chocolates below the climbing rose. Then I find a tiny fish that is floating on its side and is still alive. I rescue it, and place it in fresh water, but then it too floats back up to the surface barely moving a fin.

I empty out more water from the pond. I was only going to lower the level down to a central part that once dry I could have walked across to reach the bramble on the opposite side. Instead I realise that I will have to completely empty the pond and clean out all the gunk and put fresh water back into it before I can return the two surviving half-dead fish.

I lower the level a little more. It’s going to be a long job. I find dead frogs and toads, and more tiny dead goldfish, and I’m utterly miserable.

Then I find a live active tiny goldfish, and then another, and then a third all perfectly healthy. I transfer them into the fresh water, and when I do I see that the large goldfish is now swimming properly and that the tiny goldfish is no longer floating on the surface but has joined the others in a tiny shoal, and I feel cheered and I would have gone on emptying the pond, but then it rained heavily and I was forced to stop.

Back inside, The Teenager said he’d checked on me.

“What was I doing?” I asked, again seeing the white eyes of those tiny fishy corpses.

“Oh I dunno, just walking up and down I suppose.”

And I’m glad he didn’t really see.

So tomorrow, at first light, I will be in search of fish, unless of course I get swept off my feet by a Happy New Year banner.