£7.40

Today was a momentous day. Lucy the goldfish died.
The tank was well overdue a cleanout so we did it this morning. Ten minutes after Lucy and Libra were decanted into a bowl Lucy was floating lifelessly on the bottom.
Miss E was so engrossed in cleaning out the tank and chattering on about how happy they were going to be in their clean tank I just didn't know how to tell her!
Eventually Miss E noticed Lucy in the bowl and looked stricken. She said she thought Lucy looked a bit poorly (understatement of the year!!) and I had to explain that Lucy had in fact died.
She was so distraught it was awful. Although I did have to smile when after a few seconds of tears she wailed "can you get me another one?!"
I promised we'd go and get her another one and as luck would have it there was a fish shop not half a mile from the party we were due at this afternoon.
I think she was worried it was her fault - and she may have had a point as Lucy may have got a bit bashed by multiple attempts to catch her in the net - but I tried to reassure her that it wasn't. Her first experience of death was probably enough to deal with without worrying about being a fish murderer too!
She cheered up a bit but then the grief burst out again and she started bawling and wailing that Lucy was the only fish she'd ever loved. I have to confess to a moment of terrible parenting - and gross insensitivity to Lucy's demise - but that made me laugh uncontrollably and I had to leave Mr K to comfort her!
Mr K put Lucy in a freezer bag and we headed off to the party. After dropping Miss E off we went to the fish shop and showed the poor girl Lucy's corpse (I'm sure we're not the first!) and she showed me the tank of possible replacements. I held up the freezer bag to ensure a perfect match! There was only one that looked like Lucy so that was the lucky new member of our household.
After our successful shopping trip we went to the garden centre just up the road with Mrs W and Miss T for tea and cake. It was a lovely hour chatting and Miss L and Miss T had a great time playing. And eating strawberry jelly sweets!
Miss E had a fab time at the mad science party - lots of potions and gloop, and then was giddy to meet her new fish. When I asked what she was going to call it she naturally replied "Lucy"!
I had another giggling fit in the car when Miss E was talking about new Lucy and Miss L said she was sad about old Lucy. It doesn't sound funny but they were so earnest and the idea of new Lucy and old Lucy just tickled me.
New Lucy does look uncannily like old Lucy. If only the bloody thing had died during school hours Miss E need never have known......