Things we found in the Pond

It's a thing we do every year or two. Empty the pond out to see what's in there.

Thing is, it's easy to forget what's in there. The ancient Beaker Folk were in the habit of throwing artefacts into water courses - swords, shields, pots, the occasional human sacrifice. Obviously, the modern Beaker Person refrains from doing such things. But we do like to keep up the old ways. So there's barely a week goes by when we don't throw something in, when we're in the mood to be a bit spiritual but lacking imagination. The pond can get quite full - indeed, a couple of years ago I was able to walk across it. And so we drain the pond in mid-Autumn and have a check.

On this occasion, we seem to have uncovered the following objects. In retrospect, some of them might have been more use kept in the open air:

• A fridge;
• The headlamp from a 1977 Ford Capri;
• Sarah Palin's political career;
• A cuddly toy, minus one arm;
• 3 tons of empty aluminium tea light cases;
• A number of seashells and pebbles;
• The output of the Elementary Ikon Drawing Class, feauring saints who looked scarily like Bruce Forsythe, Donald Duck, Alan Carr and other such celebrities;
• The first draft of the planned publication, "The Complementarian Man's Cookbook":
• Ricky Gervais's humility;
• A cheese-grater;
• The only copy of the master-plan to get supporters of women's consecration elected onto the Church of England Synod;
• 45 copies of the Alternative Service Book - some sacrifice, that was, in 2012;
• Some frogs (not sure these were thrown in);
• A set of false teeth;
• Chelsea FC's long-term strategy;
• "Now that's what I call Brass Band music";
• £4.25 in loose change, and rather more in Francs and Schillings.

As I say, the aluminium is worth something, and the cash of course. We've chucked the rest back. Except the cookbook, which I've given to Drayton Parslow. And the frogs. They've hopped it.