I had decided that I did not like the pond with the black builders plastic, as I just could not get it to look natural, and the pieces that showed irritated me tremendously. My goldfish were still at the flat, and I was feeling a bitty guilty about my tennants looking after them, but as they get the flat at a reasonable rent, they did not mind in the least.
So one morning I started bringing up sand from the river, and as I am forever collecting pretty stones, all I needed then was a bag of cement, which I got from my co-op. Mixing the cement was quite a job, as the old back was not playing along too well, but I am one strong woman, and strong willed, so I persevered, and when that was done, I donned my wellies, my sunhat, and after I had removed the plastic, I first did the floor, arranging stones to look like they were scattered all over in a natural way
I then had to wait for the cement to dry, and it was hard to be kicking my heels whilst the lot took for ages to harden, but it did, and at long last I could start building the walls of the pond. It is quite difficult to arrange the stones jutting out to look natural, and as my gloves were hampering me too much, I discarded them, but cried some crocodile tears later when I sat nursing my bleeding hands.
I thought it looked beautiful when finished, and was in such a hurry to fill it up, but as the irrigation water was turned off, and we were allowed only a few kilo litres of water for the house per day, I had to keep my impatience in tow. But I fetched some water from the Kids's tank to keep the cement wet in case it cracked, as that would have been a disaster I would be hard put to overcome after my hard work.
The drought had by now become terrible, and Skramunkel was on dry food all the time, as the grazing were kaput, but I still cut her some of the grass growing around the sewerage every day. She hated the dry food, and looked at me accusingly when I put it out for her, but she was a lucky horse, as the horses roaming freely had to try and get some food by nibbling at the dried out morsels on the verges, as nobody cared about them, as long as they could pull the ploughs when planting time came.

 The farmers were worried, and so was the villagers, as most of them were dependent on the apple farms for their living, and if the drought went on for much longer, they might not have jobs, as most of them were seasonal workers.I heard the farmers say that as long as the day and night temperatures differ so much, the rain would stay away. It was strange to me that in the middle of summer the day temperature would be 35, and then by two a cool wind would blow up, getting so cold by about five that one had to don warm clothes.

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I have long since packed away my summer pajamas, as I never wore them, it just being too bally cold, so I take it to Scotland, where the summer nights were nice and warm.
My veggies that I planted close to the river had to be watered by hand every day, but I was rewarded for all my hard work with some nice greens amongst the brown dryness of everything else.
I will put a picture of my pond when I could fill it after  the drought was broken.