AS MAD AS A BOX OF FROGS (NB This is NOT about the puppies!)

Good morning!
Tuesdays are funny old days aren't they - kind of nothing days I used to think when I was a working person. Not like the dreaded Monday, but not near enough the end of the week to be getting excited either.
I had a lovely member of staff at my last school - mad as a box of frogs, but then, who wasn't in THAT particular school? Anyway, she used to be almost incoherent with absolute glee and frivolity on WEDNESDAYS. I once asked her why she was always so happy on a Wednesday. 'Because it's nearly Friday', she replied. 'Good God, if she's like this on a Wednesday, what on earth is she going to be like on Thursday then?' I wondered.
Talking of frogs - which I wasn't but I can do now, I love that expression - MAD AS A BOX OF FROGS - don't you?
But I bet you've never actually SEEN  a box of frogs; unlike me who has witnessed this rare phenomenon, in all its chaotic churning, at first hand.
Got you all agog now, haven't I?
Well, here goes!
Are you sitting comfortably, then I'll begin...

...For many years we had a small garden pond in our, well in our garden of course. My brother, brother-in-law and Charles had dug this pond one very hot summers day. (You can tell how long ago this was because I honestly cannot recall ANY really hot summers days for the last ten years or so!) Anyway, take it from me, this was the sort of day where the heat met you at the door and instantly sapped your energy and yet I HAD DECIDED that I wanted a nice little pond to be dug THAT VERY DAY OR ELSE!
I was going to say, I vividly recall the day, but in all honesty my memories are a little hazy thanks to the vast amounts of lovely chilled white wine that my sister, sister-in-law and I were consuming in the kitchen where it was still relatively cool. I do, however, remember the boys' looks of frustration, resignation and then sheer fury as we blithely yelled at them to 'Dig deeper' and chuckled uproariously every time they passed the window with a wheelbarrow full of soil and rubble and stuff!
Eventually the pond was dug, lined and surrounded by rather nice but heavy stone slabs and all the surplus soil was disposed of and then the lads were able to relax. (I think I suggested that the grass could do with a trim as it was at least 2 centimetres long, but that was the point when my brother-in-law attempted to strangle me, so we just left it at that!)
Anyway, the point to all this preamble is, that we had a very nice garden pond for years. At one point it was well stocked with koi carp, goldfish and a manic little fish called a golden orf that was actually the fish equivalent of a cannibal as we discovered when it proceeded to eat the others. Not nice!
After a time we kind of forgot about the pond. The fish were all long gone and we just left it to look after itself in the way that ponds do.
Until, that is, we had two doggy related incidents. The first of these was when Dannymatt (The only person who has actually bothered to sign up to this blog!) when his westies came for a visit and one, Maggie Mae I think, ended up going for an impromptu paddle. The other occasion involved my brother's Samoyed, Kai. I was just saying, 'Don't let him go near the p...' when the loud splash and scrabbling yelping noise indicated that in fact my warning had come too late!
In the space of a few weeks we had two very soggy doggies to towel off, and in Kai's case, a good hose down as well.
So we came to the conclusion that the pond HAD TO GO  before we got our own pups, as we didn't want to spend every waking hour fishing them out and drying them off. And this did indeed happen during the easter holidays this year, when Helen and Bill came to stay for a few days rest and relaxation. (They never learn!!)
And during the emptying of the pond we made two discoveries:
1) despite not having been fed by a human for at least fifteen years there was still a living fish down in the depths of the pond. However, this was not a happy day for him as, after being popped into a bucket (filled with pond water so as not to unsettle him) he proceeded to die of shock. Bit of a b****** that - living all that time, hapily undisturbed and then being rescued and snuffing it within 24 hours.
2) Our pond was literally stuffed full of the biggest frogs I had ever seen in my life. Bill, my brother-in-law would pick them out and hold them up to show Helen and I who had legged it back to the kitchen, and they must have been about ten inches long when their legs were stretched out. (Not that Bill was stretching them in a cruel way, it was just that when he held their bodies, their back legs kind of dangled uselessly and that's how we could see how huge they really are.)
Anyway we ended up with about twelve of these GIANT FROGS and had to decide what on earth we were going to do with them.
As an interim measure, Bill found a large plastic crate which he part filled with water and into this went the frogs. FROGS DO NOT LIKE BEING IN A BOX AND THAT IS WHY THEY GET MAD - HENCE THE SAYING!
Those frogs went ballistic in that box. It was like a whirling dervish in there!
But as a temporary measure the box at least contained the frogs. They could get no purchase against the steep sides of the crate, so they weren't going anywhere until we found another pond in which to rehome them.
Except we didnt get that far...
Bill, for all his other faults (!) is something of an animal lover. He has been known to give the kiss of life to a goldfish and we once watched in awe and wonder as he rescued a drowning sheep from the river and then proceeded to give it heart massage. So, he was not happy when he saw that the frogs weren't happy in their crate.
'What did he do?' you may well ask.
Well, he put a nice big rock very gently into the crate, being careful not to squash any of the frogs because squashed frog isn't pleasant (Neither is tumble dried frog - but that's another story!!) "Aaah, that's nice Bill', we said, 'Now they've got a nice little playground'.
And then we watched as the frogs lined up to take their turn on the rock and each one hopped nimbly over the side of the crate and away into the garden. 'My turn! My turn now! Away we go! One, two, three leap...'

Ah so that's what LEAPFROG is all about!!