Today started with the preparation of an order for a dealer that was collected by our same day courier, Phil, at 9.00 am.  We don't send fish by overnight courier and on most occasions, customers collect their fish personally, however, on some occasions this isn't possible and the alternative is Phil.  He used to be a Koi dealer and in fact still keeps Koi, so he understands their needs completely.  He is also fully licenced so it doesn't get better than that!  After Phil left, Mark got on with the business of cleaning the many filtration systems that we have on the farm whilst I spent some time working on a piece for a magazine and answering emails.  Sue Ravenhill (General Secretary for the BKKS) popped round late morning for a cuppa and to drop off some posters advertising the National for us to put up .  Whilst she was here she asked Mark if he would do some artwork for a competition that she is running at the National and to design a club logo, which he did whilst drinking his morning cup of tea!  (For those of you who don't know, Mark is actually quite a talented artist - in fact I think it is the artist in him that really drew him to Koi.)  After that Mark had just enough time get his weed sprayer ready for action and then it was time for a quick lunch before a customer arrived.  By the time they left it was 4.00 pm and Mark had to shoot off to Oxford. 

Mark didn't get home until about 12.30 am this morning after doing a talk for Middlesex and Surrey Borders Koi Club yesterday evening.  They are a lovely bunch of people and one of their newer members commented that Mark must have a great job just wandering around the ponds feeding the fish!  He isn't the first person to say that and I doubt he will be the last but it always makes us chuckle!