Starting anew

 I feel like I need to reset and start the year anew as the first week of 2026 was such a sad one.

I am realising that I need to keep as busy as possible and to shake up routines so that I'm not constantly thinking of what I would normally have been doing.  Easier said than done when the weather is miserable and you really don't feel like moving from a warm, comfortable arm chair.  So I am cracking on with the scarf that I am knitting.  It's incredibly hard to photograph as it gets bigger as it is a triangular shape knitted on circular needles!

I've been knitting it while watching the Harlan Coben drama 'Run Away'.  I'm six episodes in and I'm finding it hard to predict how it will end.  Ruth Jones, who wrote and starred in 'Gavin & Stacey' is a private investigator in it and is so very different to 'Nessa'!

I'm reading our book club's choice of book 'Theo of Golden'.  I'm nearly half way through and am enjoying it a lot.  It's very different to the last books I read which were the Seven Sisters books.  Oh my goodness, they were so cleverly written and the final one about the man who adopted the girls is incredible.  How was he in every book and I didn't realise?  

The latest series of The Traitors is airing in the UK and I am hooked!  What a bunch of characters.  There has already been a reveal of a mother and daughter and also a girl and boyfriend but there is a theory that the whole group are couples in one way or another.  One of the guys, James, is a personal trainer in a village about 4 miles from me but I know nothing about him so can't reveal if there is anyone else in there that is already associated with him.

Have you heard of an Analogue Bag?  Apparently it is gaining popularity with younger people.  It's just a bag in which you keep things like knitting, a book, crossword puzzles or a journal.  Anything that you could dip into instead of scrolling through social media.  What a brilliant idea!  I always keep either a book or a kindle in my bag if I have an appointment somewhere in case there is a delay.  Does this mean I was actually ahead of the trend for once? What would you keep in yours?

Sad news

 Those of you who know me on Facebook will already know that on Tuesday we had to say our last goodbyes to our darling Coco.

She had been diagnosed with a heart murmur some years ago and was on medication for mitral valve disease but she seemed to be defying the odds and was still really healthy in all other ways. So it was still a shock when she suddenly collapsed and a scan showed that the valve had torn and there was nothing they could do for her. An hour earlier she had eaten a good breakfast and had a lovely long walk over the park. So I will be forever thankful that she was living a good active life up to the end.

We are heartbroken and our house feels quiet and empty. So I wanted to record some of the fun of living with her for over 14 years.

She was very good at giving you the pleading puppy dog eyes when you were eating something that she thought you should be sharing with her. Yesterday I found myself holding back some macaroni and tuna from Olive’s lunch and this morning I automatically cut off some poached egg ready to give her at the end of breakfast, it will take a while to change those habits.

There is a cupboard in our kitchen that will be forever known as Coco’s cupboard. It was where her food and treats were stored and was her first port of call after returning for a walk or if we had left her on her own even for a short space of time.

During lock down I took up crocheting and we have about six blankets stored in a basket beside the fireplace. About 8 o'clock every evening she would rouse herself from her place on the sofa, drag all the blankets out and choose one to lay on for the rest of the evening. Never the same one two nights running!

We rarely left her on her own as she got older but if we did go out for the evening she would punish us by waiting until we had been in bed asleep for a couple of hours and then wake us up to make us let her out in the garden for a wee. Even though she had been out as soon as we had come home. 

Her favourite place to lie down during the day was at the top of the stairs, quite literally taking up the whole space.  We used to say that she was planning our demise trying to trip us up and send us flying.  She was so speedy going up the stairs and you would often find yourself halfway up carrying a basket of laundry and feel the brush of fur running past you in a race to the top.  It was always my concern that she would send one of us toppling down the stairs.

We thought we were going to have to call the fire brigade to rescue her once.  Goodness knows how or why she squeezed into the small gap behind our shed.  She had never tried to get down there before and there wasn't really room for her to get there and we could not work out where she had gone.  Then we heard a rustling and there she was.  Stuck.  With the stem of a vine type plant wrapped around her paw where she had tried to turn round to get out.  There was no way for us to get in there but I managed to squeeze myself sideways and grab the upper stem of the vine to try and release her.  It finally worked but I had bruises on my chest for weeks afterwards.

Every bedroom holds a dog bed.  When she was younger we always insisted she slept in the kitchen.  Then in 2015 we had our kitchen replaced and so she was temporarily allowed to come upstairs and sleep in the study.  Temporarily?  Huh, she was never going to sleep downstairs on her own again! She would start off on the floor of our bedroom and then during the night she would be on the roam, either to the official bed she was supposed to be in which was in the study, a bean bag in our son's old room or when she was feeling super cheeky, actually on the bed in our daughter's old room.

Taking her for a walk was always a bit of an unknown quantity.  She had firm ideas about where she wanted to go and it wasn't always the same route. She may have decided that day to go on a long walk, maybe it would be short, we never knew.

If you have read this far, thank you.  I wanted to jot down just some of the things that were typical of Coco to look back on. She will never be forgotten and was known and loved by so many.  Maybe one day I will be able to read this back without crying.  We have so many happy memories.  We loved you so much darling girl and we were lucky to have so many years of you loving us too.

Happy New Year!

 The weather app on my phone tells me that it is -2 outside but the wind chill means that it feels like -8.  We have a dog that does not worry about weather apps, all she knows is that she likes a long walk in the morning and would we please get a move on so she can go out.

It does look pretty out there.  There's a soft layer of frost on cars and pavements and I noticed that when I let Coco out in the garden earlier, the sparkly frost covered blades of grass gently crunched as she walked across the lawn.

Today is the day that I will be taking down the decorations and dismantle the tree.  It always looks so bare after all the colour has been packed away for another year. One person who will be pleased to get things back to normal is Coco as the tree is positioned in her favourite corner where she likes to have a doze in the evenings.  Every night she has walked towards it and I can almost see her shake her head and think 'oh, it's still there then.  When can I have my corner back?'

We do have a little extra colour as the amaryllis bulb that I planted weeks ago has burst into flower.

I've been watching that stem grow and grow, seen a flower head swell and then burst through the top leaves and slowly unfurl into a beautiful flower.  It's now too big to be on my kitchen windowsill so has been invited in to take pride of place on the sideboard in the dining room.

I don't think we can put off that dog walk any longer, it's time to bundle up in wooly scarves, hats and winter coats.  Talking of scarves, let me end by sharing my latest knitting project.  

It's a triangular scarf, knitted on circular needles.  It took a little while to get my head around how it was going to evolve from a straight line to a triangle but now I've worked it out it seems to be growing into the right shape. I just hope I get it finished before the temperatures start to rise!

Farewell to 2025

 It is fair to say that 2025 held it's fair share of good times and bad and I am definitely not going to take good times for granted in the next year!

So how did December pan out?

There was a fair amount of socialising which is lovely but I did seem to cram it all into the first ten days of the month and at one point I had been out for meals three days in a row which is not good for my waistline! 

The Christmas tree was decorated (much to Coco's disgust as it is standing in the corner that she likes to lie in after dinner in the evenings), cards were written and a nativity show was watched.  Of course I cried when the angels came on stage, I always do, but even more so this year as Rosie entered the hall dressed up in her long white dress and tinsel halo. Gingerbread houses were decorated 

The start of the process showing an artistic interpretation of Father Christmas climbing up a roof, (you need to use your imagination 😆) and by the end of the process every icing tube had been used, every sweet stuck on and quite a lot of mess was made.

The Christmas cake was more subtle using vintage decorations that once belonged to my mum.

I lost count of the number of times I went food shopping; how much food do you really need for two full days of entertaining?

We had Rachel and her children here for Christmas Day and Jon and his family joined in on Boxing Day.  It was very tiring but lovely to gather everyone together.  The children are now all of an age where they can play together and it made my heart sing to watch them all having fun.

It's been nice to have a few days to relax and have the house to ourselves after the lead up to Christmas as well as the days themselves.  I have to own up to having a two hour nap on the day after Boxing Day, I was exhausted!  I wasn't the only one  ...

The leftover food has been used up and I am trying hard to resist the call of the boxes of chocolate.  Sometimes more successfully than others 😉 Thankfully Coco is feeling back to normal and has enthusiastically come with us for long morning walks. While out with her this morning, a fellow dog walker stopped for a chat and as Coco greeted her dog she asked us 'Is she a puppy?' and was genuinely surprised when we told her she was fourteen and a half!  

Thank you for reading over the last year, I do appreciate it and hope you will continue to visit in 2026.

Let's look over the last 31 days, 1 Second Everyday

Time has flown!

I seem to have blinked and suddenly weeks have passed! I blame it on the time of year 🎄 

So what have I been up to since I was last writing a blog post?  There's been a hair cut, quite a lot of childcare, Pilates classes, Zumba classes, we hosted an Indian takeaway meal for three other couples, watched Leo play in two football matches, had a meal out with friends who we first met when we went to antenatal classes 39 years ago, decorated the house for Christmas, enjoyed a meal out with the ladies I used to work with,followed the next day by a meal out with my Knit and Natter group, celebrated my cousin's husband's 60th birthday with an afternoon tea also with my sister and her husband, wrote and sent Christmas cards, watched Rosie's nativity play, went for a birthday meal with Paul and yesterday hosted a family celebration for his birthday.  Let me share the November 1 Second Everyday roundup that I should have posted last week!

So yes, it has been busy time but we are finished with all the going out socialising now and have a quiet few days before the big event.  This afternoon I have set aside for Christmas wrapping while watching a Christmas film.  

Can you guess how excited our grandchildren were when this passed by our house just as they were going home last night?

It’s definitely beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

A better week for Coco

 Our dog has caused more than her share of drama in the last 10 days. After I published last Monday's post I discovered that she had been given the wrong strength medication.  Three times what it should have been!  No wonder she had felt better quickly. Fortunately it wasn't too drastic, it just meant that she had been on the highest level of 300g rather than the normal level of 100g. It just means we have to wean her off them a little slower.  She will have her last tablet tomorrow and then we need to see how she is. 

There's been much excitement in the family as Rosie celebrated her 7th birthday.  She was SO excited, and was awake at 4am ready to start the day with a bang.  She was soon sent back to bed to try and get a couple more hours sleep!  She had her party at a local craft centre on Saturday with the theme of KPop Demon Hunters which meant that our daughter had to spend much of the morning weaving in a very thick, long purple plait into her hair and then spray dying her own hair purple.  It looked fab and she looked great in her fancy dress outfit.  So, now the next exciting thing is Christmas!

Are you organised?  I am not at all.  I have only bought two presents so far.  I need to get in the zone and decide what I'm going to buy everyone!  Maybe I'll begin with getting some wrapping paper and cards to start the ball rolling. Or maybe my first job will be to start making list of what needs to be done/bought/cooked, I do like a list!

What a week!

 Have you heard the expression 'that was a game of two halves'?  Where a situation changes quite dramatically in a short space of time. Well that sums up my last week.

First the good part where I met my pen friend in London. We had such a lovely day and the weather could not have been more perfect (and unlike a typical British November day!) We met at the Eros statue in Picadilly Circus, then walked down to Trafalgar Square.  Had a gluhwein at a German Christmas market, walked down to the Millenium Bridge, enjoying the sights as we walked from one side of the Thames to the other. We found a lovely traditional British pub for lunch.  Then we went through Borough Market and wandered around that area in the afternoon before reluctantly saying goodbye and going our separate ways.  It was SO lovely to see her and her husband and the hours just flew by.  I even got to see some places I'd never visited before, like China Town!

But the next day was definitely not so good.  Coco had us awake at 4am trying to go downstairs but unable to manage the steps.  I had to go and pick her up and in my half sleep and without wearing my glasses I stupidly tried to carry her downstairs.  I got about four steps from the bottom when I overbalanced (it's not easy carrying 10kgs of dog when you're not really awake) and slipped down the rest of the stairs.  I let her out in the garden but something was obviously wrong with her.  We made an urgent appointment with the vet as soon as they opened and rang Rachel to let her know that we were seriously worried about her.  She immediately got in the car to come over - Coco was originally her dog - and the three of us drove to the vets.  

The vet said she was in a lot of pain in her back but she seemed otherwise to be in good health so would we like to try to medicate her to see if it were nerve related.  She couldn't say what was causing it and to find out exactly what it was would require an MRI which she would not recommend as it would require anesthesia which you want to avoid in an elderly dog. By now all three of us are in tears as we honestly thought we were going to have to make a big decision that we didn't want to make. If the medication didn’t help we would have no option but to make that decision.

So she is now on a couple of strong painkillers and anti inflammatory pills and thankfully she seems to be responding to them.  It has been a hell of a weekend desperately hoping to see an improvement.

Here’s hoping she continues to respond to her tablets and that her poor back feels better soon. It’s been a horrible weekend, watching her every move and we must have cried pints of tears on Friday. Keep improving, Coco 😘