I'm curious why you're so excited about koi, but so down on goldfish.
Given the amount of work that's going to be involved in keeping a
pond, you may want to forego the fish altogether if you're not really
into it.

I'm just being silly really..

I personally think that Sarasas are great to watch, especially when
they're upwards of a foot long. The tails are just incredible.

I'm (hopefully) going to the gardening center today to have a proper
look at the little guys, so perhaps the excitement will come then..

You shouldn't have normally have eye problems with pond goldfish
(they're not the "bubble-eyed" variety), and all of mine "swim right"
so I'm not sure what you're referring to. Are you picturing aquarium-
sized goldfish in a pond? Because, that's not what it's like at all.
They can grow 15" long. Granted, not as large as Koi, but that just
means you room for more of them.

I was thinking of the lion head and bubble eye varieties;
unfortunately I've seen too many chinese restaurants that have a bunch
of "disabled" fan tails that can't control their swim bladders
properly floating half dead in an algae encrusted "aquarium". I
remember seeing one poor specimen floating upside down fighting its
own buoyancy to get to the food at the bottom. Put me right off my
chow mein and "fancy" goldfish.

Mind you the goldfish that I've come across have all been small and
mostly sick.. seeing a properly kept 15" specimen would probably
change my mind in a flash.

If you're so down on goldfish, though, just start with a few koi and
see what happens. It sounds like that's ultimately what you want in
there anyway, so why bother with anything else?

Well, I'm a bit scared that I'll make many a mistake with the pond in
my first year.. winter.. water changes.. etc.. I don't really feel
confident to go against the advice of at least some of the people in
this group about the minimum depth and equipment level required.. I
don't want to have a koi massacre on my conscience :-)

The grid over your pond does easily come off for cleaning, injured/
dead fish removal, debris removal, etc. right? I'm still trying to
imagine a metal grid that size. It sounds really heavy. You'll
definitely be needing to get access to the pond water, especially
without a skimmer.

As I said I haven't seen said item yet, so that is another potential
problem.. I've had a very positive experience with the landscaper
gardner (http://www.verda.lu/) so far and have just let him get on
with things, but he is by no means a pond specialist and the idea of
keeping fish has been very much an afterthought for me. Now it's a bit
late in the day to change very much.

I'm just going to wait until he's finished, assess the situation and
see whether I can remedy any problems that might exist. The idea of a
skimmer (at first I thought "protein skimmer", but I now know better)
sounds good, but I'm wondering how well this works with a grid and
potentially some free floating plants like duckweed..

It's all big adventure at the moment :-)