Well here it is, my little oasis in Accrington. It might not be as big as many other ponds out there but it is becoming a rich haven for all manners of wildlife. Let me start by explaining that I am a 27yr old Pagan and I enjoy nothing more than nature (except for beer and that is natural isn`t it ). I have always been especially keen on water and fish in particular, in fact I am a very keen angler when I get the time. That is why after 4 years of living in this house I decided to build a little haven in my backyard, somewhere to sit and ponder the meaning of life, or somewhere to have a few beers in. That is in between all the downpours, flash floods, thunder storms and hurricanes we get up north!!!!

Here is the journey I took during my holidays this year.

On the second week of my holiday I had a brainwave whilst on the phone to someone in Bombay trying to sell me some phone package or other. I was gazing into my backyard which was a disaster area, overgrown, unsightly and looking surprisingly like something David Bellamy would spring out of holding a lizard to the camera and uttering something abnormal about its skin excreting a poisonous toxin that could kill a man.

That was it !,  I was to dig everything up and start from scratch with a pond as a focal point and perhaps a nice herb garden for the wifey. So after convincing the disgruntled salesman I didn`t have a phoneline I set to work.

Lets Get Cracking

First things first, I told Liz (The Mrs) what we were to do and we started to clear all the old plants and weeds. It took us literally the whole day to do and even though I`m quite a fit person, it was back breaking work. The people who had the house prior to us (who from now on will be known as `the fools`), must have had a tree fetish. There were 13 trees in the front garden and 3 in the backyard!!!, we still have a large Elderberry tree in the backyard, but thats mainly because it is a very well established tree and looks extremely nice, standing proud at well over 20`. Anyway I digress, there were roots everywhere from climbers to spreaders to what can only be described as a woven tapestry of white rope about 1" to 2" below the soil. It was impossible to dig and at one point I thought I had bitten off more than i could possibly ever chew. But at last the garden was cleared by nightfall and I had a lot of work to get through in the morning, so I went to the pub!!