In which I fall asleep at my post!

My MIL (mother-in-law) has a large pond in her garden, and both our bedroom and our sitting room below face out onto the back garden with a view of said pond. Said pond teems with goldfish - no really it does, it teems. They are friendly little wrigglers and if you stand at the edge of the pond they will all swim towards you, and thrash and sparkle about in frenzied anticipation of some fish food or bread.

Trouble is I am not the only one who admires said goldfish. Only my admiration is innocent and admiring and, you know, safe for the goldfish. No, their other admirers are a couple of very hungry and wily herons, who despite artfully designed netting seem to delight in sneaking in under the wire and then luxuriating in their own personal goldfish bouillabaisse. We have caught these herons "red-beaked" a few times over the past week, mainly first thing in the morning, or early evening. MIL is distressed that her babies (I know!) are being snacked upon, and has charged hubs and I to guard pond. This makes sense to her as our rooms have a good view of the massacre grounds, or water, whatever.

I now feel obliged early in the morning to get up out of bed and check the pond. This morning I looked out of the window at 4.30 a.m. and yes, to my unsuprise there was a heron quietly going about it's business in the pond. I banged on the window, and blow me, the blasted thing didn't even look up. Just gulped down another golden victim! Hubs was woken by the window tympany, and rushed downstairs whilst dragging on his dressing gown to cover his nakedness. Tripped over one cat, cursed, and got to the backdoor to see the heron gracefully and calmly take off, in stark and almost insolent contrast to his crashing and oath-fuelled course through the house.

We both went back to bed, and hubs immediately started snoring (aside: how do men do that, go from awake to asleep within moments?). I however felt compelled to get up every 10 minutes to check the flying fish-felon had not returned (I take my sentry duties very seriously). By 5.00 a.m. I realised that I had no chance of any real rest, so I got up switched on the computer and decided to start writing this post, whilst keeping an eye on the pond from the sitting room window. Figures.

Only thing is, I got engrossed - you know how it is, a bit of browsing here, a bit of writing there - and completely forgot about ponds, fish, heron, the whole raison d'etre for me being up. A few minutes ago MIL got up and came racing into where I am now shrieking "there are TWO herons in the pond eating my babies!"

Ooops!