On Sunday I returned from Derry to discover that all the fish in our aquarium were dead. Floating. Belly up. Distended stomachs, some burst open. It looked painful.

A blue fighter fluttered its tail at the foot of the tank, clearly in distress. I rescued it into a saucepan of fresh water in the hope of saving it, but it shook out its brilliance one last time and died too.

A helpful child adding ‘pH Down’ to the tank for no other reason than thinking it would help the fish had killed the entire population. Our colony of Platys, the Neon Tetras there since day one. Harlequins; Mr Suckerfish and the rest. All belly up.

Angela looked out this morning. Mugsy the dysfunctional Tomcat is perched on the wooden guinea pig shelter viewing Titan and Ziggy interestedly. A snack, a feast or just a spectator sport. The other cat wouldn’t bother with them but Mugsy? I don’t know. Anyhow, he was chased and duly ran away, perhaps to come back another day.

Hannah Eastwood rescued a dog from a vets in Garvagh whilst on placement. Apparently the owners brought it in – a beautiful lively, black labrador pup –  because it had eaten the family hamster. And no, they weren’t worried that the dog may have bitten off more than it could chew and may be feeling a bit liverish with all that fur, toe nails and innards.

No, they wanted it put down, and Hannah rescued it.

As I said to Angela, if everyone applied that logic, our youthful fishkiller would have been humanely put to sleep also.