Fishy Bob...

This is Holly’s new pet. A friend of hers won it for her at Pwllheli fair this weekend and by the time we got to hear about it… too late, the deed was one, fish food had been bought.

I suppose we could have left it to live in the plastic bag that the ‘hook a lucky duck’ stall had supplied but let’s just say that my judgement when it comes to pets is getting worse. So off we went to Wilkinson’s to get the fish a bowl – well, it wasn’t even a very good bag, not even a string to carry it with. How standards have declined since my childhood when 6d could win you a fan-tailed shubunkin in a drawstring polythene carrier – for another two shillings you could even buy a small glass goldfish bowl to take home and keep it in, but not these days.

We left Wilkinson’s without a two shilling bowl but with a small plastic tank including a turquoise cat-proof lid (sorry Misty, no Nin-nins), a large bag of washed Dorset gravel, two plastic water plants, aeration tablets (drop two tablets into water every three days), weekend food bars (Fishy Bob - or is it Rob? - will not be weekending in Wales, not sure about holidays though) an orange sunken ship hidey-hole (‘Every fishes dream home’), and a good few quid lighter.

We managed to get Fishy Bob-Rob home from Wales without too much spillage, carefully inserting him in the car on the floor behind the passenger seat. The car felt more like an ark than a Vauxhall, what with Misty in her carry-cage peering down at him from the seat above and Fishy Bob-Rob blowing bubbles back at Misty.

It wasn’t until we were home, grudgingly installing the tank on the work surface below the kitchen window, the place where the handy portable grill used to be, in fact still was until Fishy Bob-Rob turned up, that Holly declared… ‘I think Bob-Rob needs a friend’.

And she was right. Fishy Bob-Rob did need a friend so I got one and put it in the tank without telling her. Here’s Shadow, a fantail shubunkin, he’s a surprise – I wonder what she’ll say.