Big fish, little fish, cardboard box

As first birthdays go, I can see how that might not be a usual description – but in Bubby D’s case it actually pretty much describes her day.

With the Wee Man already having quite a large toy collection and Bubby D herself not lacking for playtime entertainment, we decided that rather than buying her another hulking lump of musical coloured plastic for her birthday, we would instead get her a fish tank. This was also a cause for great excitement for the Wee Man, who is currently a great believer in the phrase ‘sharing is caring’, providing of course that Bubby D is the one who is doing the sharing and not him.

Having had fish before, I decided to follow the proper procedure for establishing the tank environment (set up the tank, de-chlorinate the water, put in some plants and let it all run for a while), and this meant that for a full month prior to the fish arriving the tank was up and running in the front room, awaiting its new fishy inhabitants. A great lesson in patience for the Wee Man who asked on a daily basis when the fish would be coming to live in it, and largely ignored by Bubby D as we didn’t turn the lights on or activate the air pump to make the treasure chest ornament that the Other Half splashed out on flip it’s lid up and down.

The afternoon before her birthday therefore saw me taking time off work to sneak down to the the local aquatic centre (not the one in the Olympic Park…it was actually in Bethnal Green) to procure a couple of gourami’s which were discreetly added to the tank in the evening, ready for the big reveal the next morning.

Bubby D was amazed! The gouramis (which the Wee Man solemnly informed me are called Jack and Sam) look very pretty and seem happy in their new home. Gouramis are quite hardy fish, easy to look after and available in a range of colours – so they are a nice fish for a starter tropical tank.

Following on with the fishy theme, we then embarked on a journey to the London Aquarium, where Bubby D was even more amazed by a whole variety of fish, big and small. The Wee Man was far more interested in the sharks, and after walking over a glass floor above the shark tank to access the Aquarium in the first place, spent the entire time demanding to ‘walk on sharks’ some more.

And where does the cardboard box fit in? Well, following her birthday party (which occurred the weekend before the actual day) she ended up with a big cardboard box full of gifts from all her friends. Which meant that actually, she did end up with quite a lot of entertaining musical plastic after all 🙂