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For the last five years it has done wonderfully well. It's full of life with plenty of oxygenating plants as well as some ornamental plants, various fish; and this year we had some visiting frogs too, for whom we built a ladder as it's a raised pond.

The water quality of any pond always takes a while to get right, often a year or two, which means plenty of patience. I knew it had a small leak as it needs topping up occasionally which was something I was planning to fix in the spring.

Well I was out of the house for a few hours and I returned to five kids (two of the older ones were mine) with a net churning all the water and sediment around into a muddy mess. I think my kids knew it was big 'no no' but just couldn't help themselves and got caught up in the frenzy brought on by some sugary fizzy drinks. I went mildly ballistic at them, they looked mildly apologetic and then we let the churn settle. Well by Sunday there was an evil smell as whatever they had done had disrupted the fine balance. The water had gone greeny grey and some fish were on the top of the water gasping for air, a sure sign of poor water quality.

I had to act swiftly so started netting the fish and putting them in an old dustbin full of rainwater from our water butt. Sadly we lost a couple of the smaller ones, but after a few minutes of looking startled the rest picked up nicely. I emptied the pond entirely including the old silt (apologies to the neighbours due to the horrendous smell) and am now letting it completely dry out before re-sealing and then filling up again. It was a job I had been planning to do, but due to unforeseen circumstances (e.g unruly children) it was something I had to get on with far sooner than I'd thought!