I’ve completely neglected my garden pond for the last few years.  I used to look after it, but I became discouraged when great diving beetle larvae ate all my tadpoles.  I was so sad about it, I’d been thrilled when I found newt tadpoles in the pond as well as the frog ones, but the voracious and aggressive beetles ate the lot – apart from those eaten by the equally tough dragonfly nymphs.  Then Al bought his greengrocer’s shop and my time was spent growing him vegetables and the rest of the garden was given less of my time – anyway, it all became rather overgrown and I knew there was a leak near the top too.  But at last it has been dealt with.  My gardener removed everything – no frogs hibernating in the mud, he checked carefully and took out the lining and we measured it.  I went to the local shop but they didn’t have exactly the size I needed, so I came back to remeasure and see if the nearest size would do.  Then I checked on the internet – I’m afraid that it was half the price and included the lining, so I’ve bought it online.  I’m sorry about it, but it was quite a big difference.  I buy my chicken food and a lot of other stuff from there, I’m a good customer usually, but not this time.

Anyway, I’m very pleased to think that next spring it will be looking good again.  If I put in the liner this weekend, weather permitting, and fill it, it’ll be ready for the frogs and other wildlife by the spring.  I’m getting the trees that mysteriously died taken out next weekend and the lamp that Russell and I bought three or four years ago put in – I know I won’t be here all that long, but I will get it as I want it in first to enjoy it for the next year or so, anyway.  It was so much Russell’s house and grounds – which was fine, it was his home all his life and so meant more to him than to anyone else – but he didn’t really take care of it as he might have done, I never did understand the reason and I don’t suppose he did either.  Not that I want it to be too tidy either, that wouldn’t be my sort of thing at all.  I’m rambling, darlings, I should be in bed.

It’s not very late, but I am tired.  A dog barked at about 1.30 this morning, some way away but it alerted Ben and he went to check over the house, which was very good of him.  He came back in the bedroom and wuffed at the driveway and I realised i’d left an outside light on and he probably thought it was the motion-sensitive one.  So I trotted down to turn it off, rather hoping that there wasn’t anyone about because I didn’t have anything on and I’d have felt rather at a disadvantage.  Unfortunately, it didn’t stop Ben worrying, especially as the other, distant dog barked every so often, and he kept going from one window to another (they are low, he can easily see out) and sometimes grumbling or giving a low bark.  I ended up being quite impatient with him “shut the hell up “was the least of it, I’m afraid.  He settled in the end and so did I, but he slept on the sofa most of the morning, which I didn’t have the opportunity to do.

It looks as if we’ll have a kitten to stay on Christmas night – I’m not sure if I mentioned that Ro and Dora have a kitten called Jasper – they’re going for their honeymoon soon and will be back just a couple of days before Christmas.  Friends are looking after Jasper while they’re away, but if they are to stay over, they’ll have to bring him.  I think that’ll be lovely.