January 2011

Read:

• The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang [free, online]
• Daughter of Regals by Stephen Donaldson [reread]
• Rosehill: The Story of a Theatre 1959-2009 by Joe Blackadder [present]
• A Separate War and Other Stories by Joe Haldeman [M's]
• I am Legend by Richard Matheson [reread]

Knit:

• Phone sock for spare phone wot duz not have a case

Buried:

• zebrafish

The zebrafish deserves some form of commemoration.

It first took sick in late November and for a whole day swam perfect backward loop-the-loops. The loopiness, if not the precision, continued for several days.

Its difficulties intensified and the poor thing struggled to reach the depths or even middle reaches of the tank. Mostly it hung from the surface, one side uppermost and its head and tail dangling. It disappeared from time to time, caught up in the greenery that the lower-swimming fish had "pruned".

It was eating, however, hoovering the surface for the crumbs of algae flakes before diving clumsily after the lead-shot shaped food. We began to carefully sprinkle some of the food in its vicinity to help it in the evening scramble for scran.

I did worry about whether it suffered, whether it ought to be killed, but it seemed so determined to live in however a limited fashion. We saw it immobile on several occasions and thought it had gone, but it carried on gamely through Xmas and the new year.

If it's one of the first batch of zebrafish we've had it four years and it's had a very good innings. Even if it's from the later restock, it's probably been in the tank a couple of years. I think it had a good life in there.