{"id":12365,"date":"2025-10-26T21:02:26","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T21:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/?p=12365"},"modified":"2025-10-26T21:02:26","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T21:02:26","slug":"pond-update-october-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/26\/pond-update-october-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Pond update October \u201925"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our goldfish count reached a nadir of two some months ago with the mysterious disappearance of the pale and ethereal Edward.<\/p>\n

It really is a head scratcher. Where did he go? It\u2019s not like he could have popped out for a quick walk and got lost. And if he\u2019d died, wouldn\u2019t his corpse have floated to the top of the pond and been clearly visible? There\u2019s been a net across the top ever since The Great Kingfisher Massacre a few years ago so there\u2019s 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\u2019s not the first time we\u2019ve lost a fish in this impossible way, either.<\/p>\n

Our new gardener tells me he\u2019s 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.
\nMeet our brand new $10 fish:<\/p>\n

\"\"He is allegedly a chocolate brown, but in reality it\u2019s 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\u2019s 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 \u201cJackie\u2019s lunch\u201d which I thought was needlessly hurtful. I am going with \u201cDull Boy\u201d, as a nod to his unimpressive colouring and a character (Del boy) in an old English sitcom that I never actually watched.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s just being cautious in his new habitat, which is fair. I\u2019m hoping he isn\u2019t hiding from Jackie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our goldfish count reached a nadir of two some months ago with the mysterious disappearance of the pale and ethereal Edward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8Ukf-3dr","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12841,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/12\/pond-update-april-2026\/","url_meta":{"origin":12365,"position":0},"title":"Pond update April 2026","author":"Interloper11","date":"April 12, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"In an act of the purest optimism, we have replaced Fanny the goldfish RIP with two new fish. 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Several weeks\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/753CBE94-0C82-4B44-A885-7F93CAD6ED60-224x300.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1457,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/08\/pond-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":12365,"position":4},"title":"Death Fish","author":"Interloper11","date":"January 8, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"One of our pets has gone missing. Quasi, short for Quasimodo, named for his rather misshapen physique, is an ugly googly eyed black goldfish, although he does (did) have a rather lovely swishy long tail. 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