Foggy days.

My brain is whirling, and not only because my head had an epic run-in with the cast iron fire screen last week.  In the delicious haze of pain relieving medications, anti-inflamatories and muscle relaxants blended with my own special brand of confusion, I am mentally grappling with a number of issues which I intend to outline below in no particular order.


The fish are doing so much better but we're battling still to get our pH and other  chemical elements more deftly aligned with the colour scale at the aquarium so we can introduce a third.  To date are graced with Mr X, the stalwart, and Sunny the lemon comet, both of whom are frisky and happy and thriving.  Such good news after the extended chain of tragedy discussed in previous entries.

The garden remains in a state of flux, awaiting the next round of works. Mum recently arranged a quote from a fine fellow called Sam, about whom Mum had good vibes.  I didn't meet him, so my vibes do not come into play in this instance.  His task is to removed the dilapidated chook shed, grind out, by hand, the stumps from the trees removed a few months ago, help us plan a garden, including veggie patch, remove the rubbish and maintain the lawns on a regular and ongoing basis.

I want to develop a vision for the garden.  But am incredibly inexperienced and wholly clueless.  So until I drift off this is where I hope my attention will settle for today.


I still have one more Malm drawer unit to assemble before the furniture element of my bedroom is completed.  My foggy brain has put a halt to any interactions with flatpack.  Rather than my extensive experience giving me the confidence to proceed equipped with just one functioning brain cell, my self-preservation and mental health alert system has warned me to steer clear until  a few more synapses are firing.  By next weekend we would hope this would be the case.


There were a couple of other incidentals requiring attention this week.  Milo's first themed party last Sunday:  Toby's pirate party.  We considered an eyepatch to be an integral component of the costumery until we saw the beard.  

And finally, the man came to complete the pool fence.  Complete? you ask.  Yes, complete, I confirm.


About a month ago, the glass fence man arrived to remove our unsightly, rusty pool fence and gate and replace it with the new and improved minimal version.

He got to work quickly, cutting out the badness and with a little bit of help from moi commenced fitting the new panels.  All good.  Very happy.


And then, a curve ball: he advised he wouldn't be able to finish the job because the factory had given one of our panels to another customer, and we were one panel short.


Huh?


Many questions ensued.  Why did you start if you couldn't finish?  How long for the next panel?  What am I going to do with a party of small children due here next weekend for a party?   


It would be around 3 weeks or so before it could be complete, so after a little urging the company agreed to come back in a few days and fit a timber panel to at least make the pool area safe in the interim.

The giant piniata, the birthday boy, his wife and Milo.
Note panel just visible behind the wing of the chair next to Jane's elbow.

Eventually the pool fence was finished.

Mental note:  do something with that stupid hose.

And the timber panel was recycled into a pin board which I just have to work out how to fix to the plaster wall in the corridor outside Milo's and My bedrooms. It's bloody heavy.

So back to the garden I go, at least in my head.  First task, map it out. 

I may've been a little hasty. Part 2.

When you're walking up the driveway of the House at Porter, if you cast your eye to the right and squint at the dirt of the nearest garden bed you will spy the symbol marking the peaceful resting place of our dearly departed fish. 

It's now quite a school, with the addition yesterday of dear, sweet, quirky Otto.  Otto of the Grotto.  Otto who spent much of his day resting in the hole in the rock in the tank.  Otto who was only with us for ten days.  Otto.

An autopsy was undertaken at "Passion for Pets" in Bulleen, where Otto was acquired.  It seems he may've been unwell when he came to us.  So they're going to give us another Otto on Saturday. And in the meantime we will fondly remember our little, red-lipped friend with the big personality who has swum off this mortal coil.  RIP.

Hopefully the last word on our pescatorial friends.

Remind me to change the blog banner.  I think I put the moz on myself by making the "it's all happening" claim, because almost as soon as I posted it, the entire House at Porter Street fell in a ginormous exhausted, uninspired heap on the floor.


[Also, my lovely brother, came from Greece for three weeks, so we were a little distracted...]


My last post was almost a month ago.  The saga of the effing fish was the last word and that drama went on and on and on.  I don't mean to sound cruel and unfeeling.  I am completely aware that their suffering was obviously a whole lot greater than mine, but I tell you, finding them gasping, or gunk covered, or sunk, or floating or whatever first thing every morning, was bloody wearing.  


Truth told, I think there was something wrong with our water.  I was putting in the requisite ager, anti fungal and anti algae treatments and water conditioner, but still, in the end, Biggest Fish went belly up.  The water was the only variable, so I'm prepared to pin the blame firmly there.


BF was followed swiftly into the cardboard coffin and shallow burial plot in the front garden, by O'Leo, O'Steo and strike me down I can't remember the name of the other one. I have been authoritatively advised, by the man at the aquarium shop, that introducing three new fish to a bowl most likely meant there was too much ammonia in the water from their waste, and they were gassed to death. 


Oh god.  Those were very dark days.


However now we are looking onwards and upwards.  Mister X has turned his back on the pearly gates and is now rehomed in a proper tank with a filter.  His outlook has been so much improved that I have been heard to declare the tank etc to be the best $88 I ever spent.  And I have no doubt he would agree.

After a week alone and doing well, we introduced Otto  ("I like him and he likes me.  I will call him Otto.")

Otto is a curious little fella.  Totally jaunty and full of fun.  But rather partial to a nap.  He takes himself off to the grotto in the artificial rock at the bottom of the tank and has a little lie down a couple of times a day.  I've never seen a fish do this before and initially it was all I could do to stop myself from prodding him with a chopstick in case he was dead.  But patience, restraint and observation have shown that he's fine - a narcoleptic - but fine.


Anyway, tomorrow we want to get another one, just to keep Mr X company during Otto's down times, and then we can finally draw a line under the fish.  Thusly:

THE FISH.

I may've been a little hasty.

In a small village in Guatemala, weeping mourners around an open coffin comfort one another in shared grief.  So immersed, are the bereaved, in the intensity of their feeling that they don't notice the deceased sit up and ask what's going on.

That is exactly, PRECISELY, what's happened here, at the House at Porter Street.  Except we're in the kitchen and the coffin is a Tupperware bowl.


You see, Biggest Fish LIVES.  


I THOUGHT he'd left.  He was undeniably still and lifeless, sideways on the bottom of the bowl with body and eyes and mouth covered in white stringy stuff like cobwebs.  It was all over, red rover.  


Of course burial couldn't proceed until Milo came home from kindergarten, so I put the death chamber atop the bookcase (so Poppy and Bongo wouldn't eat the corpse while I was out of the house) and went to pick him up.


Life and death discussions on the way home over a soothing Chup-a-chup and we were ready to start digging.


But then HUH?  Was that his fin moving, or just the water?  Followed swiftly by a cavalcade of exclamations because undeniably Biggest Fish was drawing breath.


It's now four days later.  Biggest Fish has shed all the cobwebs and seems to've expelled a whole lot of undigested food.  His eyes are clear and he's sitting on the bottom of the bowl.


Impossible not to wonder what's going to happen with him now...

In memory of Biggest Fish #2

In Memory

of

Biggest Fish #2

Beloved companion of Mister X.

Cherished goldfish of Milo.

BF2 came to us to fill a void.

His passing today creates another.

BF2, already you are missed.

RIP