Death.

Dennis' health appeared to improve until Friday when I went to Wallop, so I put him back in the big tank and left for the weekend.

 Upon our return to the room on Monday evening, we realised that only Owyn and the minnows were swimming around - Dennis was nowhere to be seen. A quick hunt around revealed Dennis as being lying dead at the botom of a tank, near some pebbles. It was getting late so we left him in to fish him out in the morning.

When I went to get him out of the tank yesterday he tried to swim (evidently he wasn't actually dead) so we put him in the pot again to see if he picked up - though at this point it was fairly obvious there was something badly wrong with him and so we began trying to think of humane ways of putting him out of his misery.

He died last night and, after a watermelon eating competition, we thought of the best way to send him on his way to the fishy valhalla.

The suggestion of throwing him off the suspension bridge in a casket was made, and then setting this casket on fire to do it, then throwing him off in half a watermelon skin. In the end we made a funeral barge (Viking style) to put him in.

Today we held his funeral on the northern side of the suspension bridge in Menai Bridge; a daisy in his coffin alongside his lifeless body and a penny for the ferryman (its cheaper for fish).

We'll miss you Dennis. The trout of Death has slapped you and it is with a heavy heart we send you on your way to the afterlife (or Caernarfon, depending on how you look at it).