Our goldfish count reached a nadir of two some months ago with the mysterious disappearance of the pale and ethereal Edward.
It really is a head scratcher. Where did he go? It’s not like he could have popped out for a quick walk and got lost. And if he’d died, wouldn’t his corpse have floated to the top of the pond and been clearly visible? There’s been a net across the top ever since The Great Kingfisher Massacre a few years ago so there’s no external agency involved. I refuse to believe that Jackie, our most long lived fish, who has now reached quite an impressive size, has turned to cannibalism. Still, whatever the reason, I must accept that Edward is no longer a ghost in appearance only, and has truly crossed over to the other side. It’s not the first time we’ve lost a fish in this impossible way, either.
Our new gardener tells me he’s an expert on ponds, so after a couple of years of zero pond maintenance, on our return from our recent overseas trip, I felt it was safe to increase our piscine numbers. So, I went to the pet shop, and returned an hour later, $140 lighter in the pocket. To be fair, $130 of that was one bag of dog food.
Meet our brand new $10 fish:
He is allegedly a chocolate brown, but in reality it’s more muddy than that. Jackie has a patchwork colouring, and Fanny is a proper orange goldfish, so I was really limited in pigmentation options. He’s rather smaller than I would ideally have liked, but hopefully more robust than a feeder fish, which are bought specifically as nourishment for carnivorous species. Nonetheless, when I asked the family for name suggestions, our eldest came up with “Jackie’s lunch” which I thought was needlessly hurtful. I am going with “Dull Boy”, as a nod to his unimpressive colouring and a character (Del boy) in an old English sitcom that I never actually watched.
Dull Boy has been keeping a very low profile so far. I was concerned for him until I was clearing out an old plant from the bottom of the pond last week and saw him frantically swimming away from my hand. I guess he’s just being cautious in his new habitat, which is fair. I’m hoping he isn’t hiding from Jackie.