The year of "sprechen sie deutsching" was over. We moved to Highgate, a very quiet road, lots of children our age and many a football match was played in the street. The house had 4 bedrooms, a bathroom, a double length sitting room and an amazing dining room extension that looked over the garden. The garden was totally overgrown. A veritable jungle. This would take months. Those months were a dangerous time, if we even sat down for a second some task would be thrown at us. We kept ourselves occupied, homework was welcomed (not frowned upon), anything but anything to avoid digging, weeding and suchlike.
Finally, the debris was cleared and a lawn emerge with borders filled with a variety of green thingys (plants have never been a strong point). Mum, has always enjoyed gardening, i think maybe it was her escape from our constant harrassing, a period of solitude and contemplation before the tsunami of hooliganism would once again crash upon her. The garden looked great, but father had now decided we would dig a bloody great hole in it and build a pond. Father was always a delegator, we knew this WE meant US. After a couple of weekends of furious digging a bit of lining and a lot of water we had a "water feature". What we now needed were some fish.
Dad sent us to the local fair to win some. The fairgrounds back then comprised of a whole load of games weighted against you where if you got lucky you could win a goldfish. We settled on "darts" (You throw sharp pointy mettle things at a board). We spent about 3 pounds "winning" a fish that cost 50p. This unfortunate creature is handed over in a plastic bag with a bit of water in it. We thought we'd try and win another one. I took the darts and aimed carefully. Tom pointed out that the bag i'd put down had now lost all it's water - a quick rush to a tap and amazingly it had survived. Enough was enough. We'd take it straight back. Walking back through the park i tripped, the bag went flying, flew way up in the air and landed with a resounding smack - but again this tiny thing (it was no more than an inch long) lived. We named this fish - "fortunate fred".
Dad sent us to the local fair to win some. The fairgrounds back then comprised of a whole load of games weighted against you where if you got lucky you could win a goldfish. We settled on "darts" (You throw sharp pointy mettle things at a board). We spent about 3 pounds "winning" a fish that cost 50p. This unfortunate creature is handed over in a plastic bag with a bit of water in it. We thought we'd try and win another one. I took the darts and aimed carefully. Tom pointed out that the bag i'd put down had now lost all it's water - a quick rush to a tap and amazingly it had survived. Enough was enough. We'd take it straight back. Walking back through the park i tripped, the bag went flying, flew way up in the air and landed with a resounding smack - but again this tiny thing (it was no more than an inch long) lived. We named this fish - "fortunate fred".
We got back to the house, the water needed testing. I wasn't willing to put an innocent creature in the pond. My brother - perfect. Fred was soon joined by several other species, but he held his own. He was about 7 inches long and 9 years old when we finally left, he was indeed a most "fortunate" fish.
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