A Fishy Tale!

Joyce and I were down at Freddie's again over the weekend and we are gradually getting things organised there. No small thanks to Freddie's wonderful friends. One thing though which has caused me some concern is her pond. There have been problems with the pump valve blocking and pumping the water out onto the grass rather than back into the pond resulting... obviously in a drained pond and some very unhappy fish.... fortunately someone has spotted the problem in time and mass fishicide has been avoided.
Well, on Saturday Jim and I drained the pond and checked out the pump and filter again. Thanks Jim, it was not a fun job - the water was freezing and the mud stank and the frogs - who had begun to hibernate at the bottom of the pond - were VERY unimpressed at being netted in error and showed just how well they could jump out of the net and back into the mud.
I've worked out what was wrong with the pump but have decided to leave it switched off for the winter period anyway. I did however decide I would not be able to live with myself if I was the cause of Freddie's fish all dying... so yesterday I rescued four.
I had a crate in the boot of my car, containing a bucket 1/3rd full of water containing the fish and covered with a poly bag tied with an elastic and a ribbon.... couldn't find string so a ribbon it had to be! Most fetching! Joyce gave me an old camping water bottle full of water just in case of further leaks and I set off up the A68. I don't know how well you know the A68 between Durham and Edinburgh, but a combination of the Cheviots, the mining country and everything else means that it has more ups and downs than any other road I know, and not just wee gentle ups and downs but amazing crowns and crests and blind summits where you can fly the car rather than drive it... crests they call them on the road signs and crest we did. After the joys of Carter Bar, I stopped for some refreshment at the Jedburgh Woollen Mill and to my surprise bumped into D&V there on their way back from a wedding. Nice to have some company! I shot away from them though and got back on the road and up and over Soutra, the views over the Forth were fabulous, clear cold evening skies a beautiful sunset and winter colours.
Somehow, eventually, I managed to get to Edinburgh with fish intact and very little water in the boot! I've now moved them into my pond with the 6 fish that are already there. I'm sure that being hardy northerners they'll be able to hold their own against my wee Scottish beasts! Hopefully the cold will make them so drowsy that they'll all just go into winter shutdown and by the time they all wake up in the spring they'll be so used to each otehr that they won't even notice that there are more than there were before. It was certainly cold last night -3 on my window thermometer when I checked it this morning before going to work. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr. It is a nice wee pond though I'm quite chuffed with it.