Animal husbandry is one thing, give me a cat or dog or something like that any day, then they are relatively easy and straight-forward to look after. However attempting to tend to an obviously sick and what looks like an about-to-explode black goldfish is quite another scenario and Mr H and myself have been feeling somewhat out of our - um, well - depth on this one.

Animal husbandry is one thing, give me a cat or dog or something like that any day, then they are relatively easy and straight-forward to look after. However attempting to tend to an obviously sick and what looks like an about-to-explode black goldfish is quite another scenario and Mr H and myself have been feeling somewhat out of our - um, well - depth on this one.

We've been having a bit of a to-do, doing a bit of “sole” searching and wondering what on earth to do with one of our finned friends, who has generally spent the last six or so years swimming fairly aimlessly round various ponds, not causing anyone a single iota of anxiety.

He's black, so not often very visible, about seven inches long, and just sort of smoothes about not making any waves within the fishing community within which he lives. His mates are one rather magnificent and large yellow jobby with flowing tail and fins, a smaller yellow one with one red eye and one green one (which obviously thinks it's a really a boat, as in port and starboard), a big gold- and then several lesser size goldfish.

They appear to get along famously in a wet underwater sort of a way.

Earlier this year we did fish out a couple of corpses but apart from those two over-winter fatalities, the rest of the gang just glide about in our pond, occasionally do dolphin impressions when they leap for midges or breaking surface hoovering up floating food pellets. Actually Mr H is quietly rather proud of how he's hand trained them all to come up for grub. It's not quite Miami Seaquarium Dolphin Show standard yet but when he bangs the side of the pond with the canister they do swim upwards a miniscule touch faster.

But oh, the black goldfish, he's definitely peaky. Sick as a parrot, I'd surmise. He appears to have swallowed a tennis ball and now white spots have appeared on his side, it must be the fishpox. So having acquired a fishing net one lunchtime this week, Mr H has now caught the thing and quarantined it in a big bucket.

One that, probably by the time you read this, he may well have kicked. RIP one black goldfish.