LET’S get a goldfish,” I announced out of nowhere. “They’re low-maintenance pets.”

Canvassing support, I turned to the Mother Superior.

“They’re very calming.... and it’ll teach the kids about death.”

Next thing you know, we’re in the store, signing the kids up for their Pet Death NVQ.

The eldest starts wildly tracing her finger around a tank: “I want that one!”

But it’s not that easy. Buying goldfish has been ‘officialised’.

One time, all you had to do was hit a tin of beans with a wonky air-rifle to get a goldfish.If you wanted it alive before you got home, you stayed off the waltzers.

These days, you get quizzed by the ‘Fish Police’.

“How big’s your tank? Does it have a filter? Has it been running for three days? Store policy dictates the tank has to be this big and contain filtered Perrier.”

Not quite, but you get the picture.

The upshot? “I’m sorry, you can’t take away any fish today.”

So it’s back in the car kids.

“Stop crying. Think of all the fish lives you’ve spared.”

Cold water can kill them, apparently. Which must be a major design flaw for a fish. That’s like a bird having a fear of heights.

I didn’t tell the Fish Inspector that as kids, we netted ours with a tea-strainer and plunged them from lukewarm water into freezing tap water. Or that we used to fill up the bath occasionally for a ‘big swim’.

Maybe that’s why careful scrutiny of mam’s back garden still yields the odd lollypop cross.

After three days of water juggling and a noisy bubbling filter that made everyone want to go to the loo, the fish were installed in their new jacuzzi to textbook regs.

They seem quite happy, but the Mother Superior can’t settle.

“It still looks a bit cloudy,” she will occasionally frown.

The moral of this story? Goldfish aren’t low maintenance or calming. Ours will live forever. The kids will fail their Pet Death NVQ.