Prepare for some seriously bad photos ...
The last few years have been hard for me, and things got neglected. Especially the garden. Most especially the pond. So I was not surprised when I finally cleared it out last weekend that I discovered a complete absence of fish. And tadpoles. But as usual, a proliferation of mosquito larvae. Who hatch and bite people. Small, half naked children, with soft skins and ferocious tempers, who will probably yell all night if they get lots of mosquito bites, and keep me up.
What's a woman to do? Buy sticklebacks!
On-line, of course - what's the internet for, if not to purchase three-spined tiny fish for a little backyard pool?
The spiel was made, money changed hands - and THEN! they tell me they only deliver during the week, NOT on Saturdays when I am at home.
After some e-mails back and forth I finally told them to deliver to work. Bad idea! For I did not know that they used a massive bag for the ten tiny fish I had ordered!
Getting it home was a minor nightmare. I took a taxi to my coach station in London, and barely managed to carry the bag up the stairs of the double-decker bus. It must have been traumatising for the little ones, and I fear they learned some very bad language from me. Upstairs I had to put them up on the seat by the small end down, that's the only way they could fit. I barely managed to put a seat-belt around them, bag and all.
Once home all was forgotten of course. I floated them on the pond in their bag for a while, to get used to their new neighbourhood, and then slowly decanted them into the watery waste.
I figure my pond is a vast improvement to their concrete breeding tank, but my efforts have not been rewarded so far - they all disappeared and I am none the wiser whether they are still alive or have met with an untimely end in the stomach of some enterprising hedgehog or dragonfly larvae.
Well, at least they'll polish off the mosquito larvae!
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| The bag on top of my washing machine - isn't it huge? |
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| All the fish fit into a little corner of the bag |
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| Bag resting on the pond |
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| Other end of the secret escape tunnel for frogs from my pond |
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| Pond end of the escape tunnel |
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| I have been doing some serious cutting back ... |
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| Compost heap: 2mx2mx3m (formerly known as The Hedge) |
