Fauna Friday: Those dratted fish!

Last Friday I noticed a neighbour's door was just standing open and snow was building up inside, so I called and called. No answer. The door just wouldn't shut so I found an old sink pedestal and got it behind the door and pulled the door closed with string I had looped round the pedestal. Then I rang the neighbour's (C's) mobile. 'Oh, thank you', she said. 'I couldn't drive home last night. Could you feed the fish please?'
I went in to feed the fish, wondering if she would have asked me to do this even if I hadn't rung her. Oh dear, the fish didn't look well. They were alive but very stationary and didn't come up for their food. These fish were the replacements for the one that recently died on my watch so I really didn't want this happening again. I rang C again and she suggested warming up their water - but only to 23 degrees. Ahem. I don't have a thermometer, only the one hubby has with his chemo and he wouldn't want me putting that in a fish tank. Anyway it didn't seem to register at that low level. I just guessed and hoped I wasn't going to cook them. They did liven up a bit and ate some food.

They stayed alive all day and at night C asked me to put a fan heater on all night. I worried to death I would set the place on fire. Next day I had the idea of hot water bottles, so every 2 hours I was going in there and leaving 2 bottles against the tank. If there was no movement I was banging on the glass tank begging them to wake up. C said on Sunday that she would be back that night and not to do any more, but she still didn't turn up by bedtime and left no word either, so I kept going in there, heating, feeding and checking. Each night I left the heater on all night as she asked and each day I gave them their bottles. She finally came home on Tuesday and they were still alive. I told her of all I had been doing but you know, I hardy got a word of thanks.

These are not the ones. I was going to take a piccy but she turned up before I got round to it.