I knew it was going to be a bad day ...

.... when I was woken up to be taken to see the mentally ill fish who was swimming around his tank - upside down. Actually, it was quite an amazing thing to watch. I've never seen a fish swimming upside down before.

I had to utilise my best counselling skills with my son in an attempt to soften the blow for the inevitable. Dolly, who had been watching proceedings, immediately disappeared and reappeared with a shopping list. She's my kind of girl - when the going gets tough, shop!

'We'll only have an hour' she says ' between you picking me up and collecting Michael from school.' Unsure exactly where this is going, I merely say 'Oh'. 'Here is the list' she continues, handing me a sheet of A4 on which she has written party hats, blowers and ballonns (or balloons to you and me) She looks at my confused expression in the exasperated way that only a six year old can look at her deranged mother and explained 'they're for Splish's funeral party!'

I hope, when it comes my turn, she's the one arranging the wake!

After a couple of false alarms before we had even left for school, I promised to keep an eye on Splish all day.

It was with some horror that, when I peeped in just before lunch to see if he was giving me the one-eyed stare, I discovered he was still alive, but had been sucked up the 'in' pipe for the air filter! Or at least half-sucked up. I could see this was a fish with attitude; he wasn't going to make my life easy and go quietly.

So I did what any irrational woman does in these situation and phoned my mum. When she arrived, we discussed the situation for 10 minutes and had a cup of tea before we hit upon the idea of turning off the air filter (which incidently, worked a treat!)

Unfortunately, by the time we arrived home from school this afternoon, Splish had died. Son was upset because he had lost his pet, daughter was more upset because we hadn't stopped off to get the ballonns.

After a suitable time had passed, I broached the topic of funeral arrangements. My initial suggestion of flushing Splish down the toilet was met with two looks of absolute horror! 'Mummy,' says Dolly 'how would you like it if we flushed you down the toilet when you die?' Good point, you could never afford the DynoRod bills apart from anything else, but I did have to ask what they did intend to do with me.

'We're going to plant you in the garden of course!' Cancel that previous thought.

Internment later this evening, invitations have been issued. I have been asked to be the flusher at the ceremony (seems mum always knows best after all) Donations in lieu of ballonns to 'The New Fish Fund'.