I am surrounded by fish. There are two in the sitting room, circling round and round a Disney style castle.

If you believe fish experts, they are totally amazed every time they see it, having forgotten that they saw it the last time they circled the bowl.

Personally, I'm not sure the fish experts are right as I'm pretty sure the fish react with some excitement when their bowl is approached first thing in the morning by someone carrying a tub of fish food.

When this happens, they stop circling and wait expectantly at edge of bowl until the food is dropped in, which suggests they certainly remember the last time someone approached their bowl with a tub of fish food, which was a lot longer ago than the eight seconds which fish experts claim their memory lasts for.

Anyway, those fish are on loan from a friend of eldest Rugrat, who has gone off to France for the holidays leaving us to fish-sit Cinderella and Snow White, whose presence has had a strangely calming effect on family.

The latter now spends a fraction more time than usual sitting quietly watching the fish going round and round their castle, (no need to wait for their Prince to come - they already have their dream home), punctuated by occasional bouts of arguing with a) each other about whose turn it is to feed the fish and b) self, about whether they actually need feeding ten minutes after the last feed.

Having said to Thomas that I quite liked having fish in the family, he brought me home one evening a new fish screen-saver.

So now I too can sit mesmerised by thousands of tropical fish, being constantly surprised by the beauties of the Great Barrier Reef.

Which was appropriate as my work over the last couple of days has been to write up an interview with famous comedian about his favourite type of holiday which, as luck would have it, is fishing, or more precisely bone fishing (a type of fishing which I'd never heard of which takes place in the Caribbean).

In order to be fully prepared for interview I spent a few hours trawling (no pun intended) through bone fishing websites.

Anyway, having researched bone fishing as well as I could, I went to meet comedian for whom the sport is a total obsession and came back with plenty of fishing exploits to write about, had I not been distracted by the fish on my screen saver and the voices of the Rugrats getting increasingly loud and fractious in the sitting room.

"What's going on?" I asked and in response was given several replies which suggested there had been an argument about whose turn it was to feed Cinders and Snowy, which culminated in eldest hiding the fish food and youngest retaliating by giving them a ham sandwich.

The sandwich had apparently been gobbled up with the speed of a Barracuda biting into a Bone fish (I told you I am now something of an expert), causing some concern that our fish-sitting adventure might end in tears, or at least the death of one or other or both of our charges.

"Perhaps they'll just fall asleep and wake up again when the Prince arrives," suggested middle Rugrat, coming into my boot cupboard turned office where I was looking on some of the fish internet sites that are now listed as my favourites for details of where to buy new online fish - just in case.

"Perhaps," I said unconvincingly, as a "you have mail" message flashed up on my screen and I opened it to discover I was being offered an interview with a TV chef - whose new book will be all about fish ...