Members of our family are well known in the family for now and again managing to mangle their sentences and over the years many of their sayings have become part of our family lingo.

This does now and again lead to raised eyebrows when we announce that ‘it’s good to keep your feet on terracotta’ rather than terra firma or say that we’re having ‘serratti’ for dinner instead of spaghetti with plorifrolls for dessert rather than profiterole but we know what we mean.

The housemate is one of the best when it comes to mangling a sentence, or saying something which reduces everyone to laughter much to her disgust.

“What time is your 9 o’clock meeting today?” She asked earlier this week as I got ready for work.

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “I’ll have to check my diary!”

“Oh ok” she answered looking slightly confused at my shocked look.

“I’m so used to you calling it your 9 o’clock meeting that I forgot it was about what time it was held rather than what it was called,” she laughed when the penny finally dropped.

“It all works out in my head,” she added slightly worryingly.

This week the main focus of her thinking has been the fish in our garden pond…or at least the apparent lack of them.

Having spotted a lurking heron a few weeks back she’s been convinced that the entire stock of fish has become its lunch.

We finally got around to putting a net over the pond a few weekends ago but the housemate remains convinced that we’ve shut the stable door after the horses have bolted and spends many an hour gazing into the water hoping or a glimpse of Casper the Ghost, Big Red the goldfish, or my favourite Judi Tench.

Finally as I walked up the garden on the weekend I spotted a fleeting view of Casper as he shot across the pond and into the plants where I’m convinced they are hiding out.

Delighted I headed to the house to share the good news.

“I’ve just seen the ghost,” I announced to the housemate as I burst into the kitchen.

“What?” She replied with her eyes wide open. “I’ve always said there’s something strange in the house, but I never thought you’d see anything.”

“No…not A ghost, THE ghost!’ I clarified.

“Oh,” she replied, seemingly slightly disappointed for someone who’d been virtually camped out by the pond for a fortnight. “Where was he?”

“Well he was in the pond. He’s a fish,” I explained patiently

“I know that,” she snapped. “But what was he doing?”

“The Argentine tango,” I replied. “He’s a fish. What do you think he was doing? He was just swimming back and fore like they do. I though you’d be more pleased to hear he’s alive.”

“ I knew he was alive. I’ve changed my mind about the heron attack now,” she replied, overlooking my sarcasm.

“I think it’s the baby fish which were born last year. They’ve formed a massive shoal and they’re bullying the big ones and keeping them confined to the reeds like a little fishy mafia. We might need to take them out…I mean out of the pond, not in an assassination way.”

“ I thought that that’s was a bit brutal. I wonder which one is the cod-father?” I laughed, ignoring her rolling eyes.