"What are we doing this weekend?" asked daughter last week.

"Well seeing as your dad and I are standing in a hole in the garden with spades in our hands, it looks like we are making a pond this weekend.

"Would you like to help us?"

"No thanks. God you two are too sad to be true," replied daughter. "What do you want a pond for?"

I have always wanted a pond. They are interesting. Bit sad I know, but quite permissible once you are in your 40s.

It has taken me two years to persuade him indoors to get outdoors and dig my pond. I didn't plan a huge pond, just a little one in a corner under a tree, that I could sit beside when the weather was nice.

The sort of pond that has a couple of water lilies and a few fish and ofcourse tadpoles that turn into hundreds of tiny baby frogs. All I needed to find were some tadpoles.

"Would you like to come for a walk?" I asked daughter.

"Why?" she asked suspiciously.

"Just a walk to be healthy," I said. "I thought we could go to Queens Park. It's pretty at this time of year."

"If we are just going on a walk to be healthy and because it's pretty, why have you got a carrier bag containing a fishing net on a stick and a jam jar in your hand?" she asked with some sarcasm.

"Oh that," I said. "That's just in case there is anything interesting in the pond."

"Like tadpoles?" said daughter "Well, yes," I admitted sheepishly.

"You do realise I am fourteen now!" she said.

"I no longer go tadpole hunting, I am a teenager. I go shopping and to the cinema and bowling and things. I do not stand in muddy ponds trying to catch tadpoles.

"The only frogs I am interested in are the type who turn into princes when you kiss them. When are you going to grow up Mum?"

In the end I persuaded her to accompany me on the basis that she was allowed to walk away if she saw any of her friends, and so long as I took her shopping the next day.

Unfortunately there wasn't a tadpole in sight.

I couldn't persuade her to come with me to any other local ponds because she said they were private property and it would be stealing so I had to wait until a friend brought some tadpoles from his pond.

The next day I kept my promise and we went to the bank holiday market at the racecourse.

Daughter went to look at the shoe stalls but I was distracted by some huge ferns that I thought would look great around the edge of my pond. They were so cheap I bought four.

"How are you planning to get them home?" asked daughter when she saw me sweating under the weight of the large plants tucked awkwardly under my arms.

"Well I thought maybe you could help," I said.

"I am a teenager, I do not carry plants in public . . .