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Greenfish
I hope to manage to get away for a few days this year. We didn't manage it last year. Mainly because of a certain Mr Brown's 'saving the planet', the plummeting Pound and just the general economic and industrial malaise. Our business is still very much dependant upon the British economy and, as everyone knows that hadn't actually left the planet during the past twelve months or so, Britain's woes have just gone from bad to worse - and then some more!
So I was discussing with the Memsahib where we might go if things started to show any signs of improving. Then she reminded me of what happened last time we went away for a few days. We were living in a different village at that time so it is probably now safe to tell the story. So I'll begin.
First of all we have a cat and naturally she needs looking after whenever we go away. She needs looking after properly too. She demands to be fed three times a day and woe betide you if you don't clean her bowl properly before dolloping the next sachet of goo in that she chooses for her lunch or dinner. She simply won't eat it and screams the place down until you throw the whole lot away and start again with a fresh portion. There's no fooling her either. Going through the motions of pretending to open a new sachet but surreptitiously slipping the first offering back in front of her cuts no ice at all and she'll just scream louder.
She has managed to take on the proportions of a small donkey in this way yet is still remarkably lean and fit. Our cat was less of a problem than our goldfish last hols though. Well they weren't actually goldfish anymore at the time on account of my putting too much of a concoction in their watery home that was designed to cure some infernal fin parasite. It was a medication that had included a blue dye so that it was possible to judge for how long it would be effective. As the medicinal effects wear off so the dye disappears. Problem was I made a mistake with the units (I never did understand decimetres and other inter-galactic units of measurement!) and added ten times too much. Goldfish being ostensibly a yellowish orange colour the effect of too much blue dye was to turn them green. They did look pretty though and it didn't seem to have any adverse long term effects on them and they were that way for a few months before we went away on our brief trip.
Our dear friend and next-door neighbour would always look after our little menagerie for us and so it was on this occasion. We returned much refreshed and were greeted as usual at the door by our ever loving cat. Followed a few minutes later by our neighbour's fourteen year old grand-daughter. She enquires as to how our holiday went and then asks if our cat was well, along with our goldfish. To which we confirmed that everyone looked fine.
An hour later our neighbour's son and daughter-in-law arrive bearing a bunch of flowers. They too ask how our holiday went and curiously they also asked about the health of our cat and our fish. We again confirmed that everyone seemed just tickety-boo.
Finally our next-door neighbour arrives and she also asks if the cat and fish are well.
In the short interval between our neighbour's son and daughter-in-law arriving and our neighbour herself arriving I had decided to reward our goldfish with a little extra midday treat of their favourite fishy food. This provided me with the opportunity to now be able to provide a much more detailed reply.
"Yes." I said. "The fish look fine. Two of them are each an inch shorter than they were. One has grown an extra pair of fins. Another is now black although when we left it was white and now there are three more than there were but apart from that they all look great thanks."
I hope their predecessors didn't suffer.
I’ve finished ‘fishing’ now.
For the day anyway.
