New year, new start. Really good for mental health as well as fitness and zest for living… apparently. Exceptionally early wake up calls, getting outdoors ASAP to take in the fresh air and biting wind, couple of laps of the perimeter , using mental agility, lots of bending and stretching and all for no subscription or monthly fee. There is unfortunately a rather hefty start up cost. Yep, acquiring The Golden H has all the hallmarks of military boot camp, and at this moment in time, without any of the benefits apart from the obvious; he makes a cute looking housemate. Having reached 12 weeks and 1 day, we’re waiting, albeit not particularly patiently for the Eureka moment when he suddenly realises, we call the shots and he does as he’s told if he wants food and lodgings on a permanent contract. You can tell it’s a long time since we’ve done any kind of hands-on parenting!

Thankfully, there’s enough entertainment with squirrels, dead leaves, dead plant pots, dead footballs and currently live chickens to hold his attention in the garden. In fact, it’s most definitely easier to parent this particular infant outdoors, rather than in. That situation is bringing all kinds of chaos to everyday living. Whose track was ‘Wake me up when it’s all over’? I think I know what it’s referring to…

New Year, new bugs and more than one of the gang have succumbed only 8 days in. The deforestation of the lounge on 12th Night as well as playing Florence Nightingale last week has catapulted the lopper Princess straight out of the office and into her bed. On a plus, if we’re looking for one, she’s managing to avoid the temptation of joining Kev’s Angels for pizza & Prosecco lunches this week. Others are suffering equally, the aftermath of the festive season seems to take no prisoners. Get well soon everyone!

More new beginnings…Baby B is having her first taste of gloop and first boy is proudly wearing first shoes. These are milestones and mill stones. Once you get the taste of real food in this family, there’s no looking back, everyone’s a guinea pig for sugar, (but mostly) spice and all things nice. And once that lad steadies on those feet, the girls had best hang on to their hats because he’ll be coming for them. He has a year and 2 months of catching up to do and his popsicle of a sister is probably going to regret dressing him up in her fave party dress when he was too immobile to complain. Hopefully, it didn’t make Instagram…. yet.

I swear he must have swallowed a sofa last night…he looks HUGE this morning! 11.6 weeks of muscle in a fur gilet. Not quite sure whose lap he’ll fit on to at next get together; maybe we’ll see if Tyson Fury is free. Must also remind everyone that Golden H’s colour is the new black. All we need is a spinning wheel and someone who knows what they’re doing and we’ll be in business with Retriever handbags, cushion covers and fur throws!

Maybe yesterday increased his appetite. I’m sure he licked his lips when the new arrivals appeared. Actually, thinking about it, it was lunchtime. White, black, brown and fittingly, a distinctive Golden Hurricane colour that promises blue eggs( now there’s a scrambled egg on toast breakfast I definitely don’t fancy). I think he realised from the off that there’s fun to be had with these squeaky ‘toys’. We had hoped to have them free roaming and free ranging…re-think in order urgently. The’re definitely confined to barracks for now at least.

Learned a new fact last night on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Q.What is the offspring of a donkey and a female horse called?

A. A mule. (I always thought a mule was a dumb horse. Admittedly, i’d never thought about it at length or wondered who had provided the questionnaire to the horses to see who had the highest IQ .)

Anyway, made me wonder if Golden H’s mum was actually a horse and that’s why he’s already got the legs of a thoroughbred filly..he’s struggling to get himself fully on bottom stair now. Going to have to find himself a new comfy shlomping ground where he can keep his feeding bowl in full site.

So after all the excitement and the razzamatazz, it’s finally over; the glam, the bling, the illuminations, all done and dusted. No, not the Golden Globes, Christmas. And unlike Ricky Gervais offending everyone, ours went without a hitch and we all still like each other.

So, Twelfth Night.. there’s a conundrum, is it the 5th or the 6th? (Is a Jaffa a biscuit or a cake?). I always defer to what suits best and yesterday being a Sunday became 12th Night at the homestead. All away for another year…. tired, worn and dusty and that just us two! Who wouldn’t love the apres festive treatment the decs get. Lovingly handled and packaged gently away to fight another season while they gain vintage status and bank another year of priceless memories. Perhaps i’ll reincarnate as a Christmas bauble.

Loving Christmas has been handed down to us. And much as i love the tradition and pageant of it all, even I could see this year that buying a tree; a gorgeous living monument to life, growing daily in stature and majesty only to be redirected to the compost heap ( after an hour with a petite redhead with sharp loppers and more muscle power than she’d realised) exactly a month to the day later seems an inordinate travesty. There are of course worse places than a compost heap for it to end up in and for my conscience, i shall hold that thought for now…

So what will 2020 bring? No babes on the horizon…yet. A wedding in the Med to look forward to next year, numerous birthdays and a ceremony or two with Fr Peter as MC; always entertaining (unless you’re a child being reminded AGAIN to tidy your bedroom!) But beyond that, its more of the same for us. Spring will follow frost and snowflakes, (according to Rachel on Virgin Radio and there’s something about the soft Irish twang that makes you believe it). We’ll grow chillies and garlic and onions and enough courgettes to put a smile on Bob Geldof’s face. We’ll experiment with new stuff and forget about what went wrong last year. New Year brings new promise, new opportunities and a reminder that although it’s more of the same, how we approach it is up to us. We are looking forward to watching The Golden One grow (!) in confidence and elegance with less penchant for chewing hair and nibbling toes. Hopefully he’ll develop a passion, much like us, for a decent night of uninterrupted sleep! I’ve already forgotten that we contemplated getting another later in year…maybe later in another year….. or even when I’m a Christmas bauble…. I loved those snakeskin mules.

NO! NO! NOO! NO. NO. NO. NOOOOOOOO! To The Golden Hurricane, this means only one thing…YES, Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes! If patience is a virtue, I am slowly losing my virtuous stack of it. Aside from the obvious; furniture, shoes, cushions, tea towels, sheepskin rug thrown loosely i.e. fashionably, (as seen in Country Homes mag), over the back of rocker, there is nothing left that is either sacred or safe. I seem to have gained a talent for telling the difference between the objects getting the full chew treatment; a Sylvanian Family Chocolate Labrador sounds nothing like a Crayola pen lid but on the other hand, an Upsy Daisy closely resembles a Dyson attachment, as does a carbon monoxide monitor, similar but not entirely the same. The added bonus of the latter is it lets out a high pitched beep, when toothed, which has H fleeing at speed……hmmmm, useful tool.

By the way, i’ve seen what H does with my sheepskin rug and that definitely wasn’t a feature in the copy of Country Homes i read!

Putting everything up at head height may work for now, but whose head height? My nickname wasn’t Mighty Mouse for anything other than my stature (and pace around the work place as a teenager wanting to impress). So as The Golden One increases in size daily, I best keep the stepladder handy.

The increase in size is jaw dropping, double the size since arrival. At this rate, he’ll need his own suite , never mind corner of the study. Wonder what we were thinking when we bought that cute little furry dog bed from TKMaxx.

The subject of poo and its’ size (not shape, thankfully…yet!) is a new topic at home. We seem to be using the word ‘big’ rather often. To me that kind of says it must be average size because ‘big’ surely implies bigger than usual. I’d forgotten that with a new addition to family; puppy, baby or other, talk always turns to waste and talking of which… we’ve gone backwards and late night relining of crate after excavating the contents is back, following that one night reprieve and actually now i’m thinking about it, they were big!

So, for the moment at least we are bleary eyed, lack of conversationalists looking forward to getting back into bed from the moment we get up!

On a plus side, H loves the garden. He is particularly partial to a mouthful of leaves, the more sodden the better. I can only liken his behaviour when his jaw is full of them, to a cat catching its first Jerry. He parades and poses and i’m almost sure grins at his prowess. Perhaps he’s not getting enough excitement indoors! When we’re ready to shlomp in the evening, he is at his most theatrical and show time really begins. We see a relaxing lounge, he sees a circus tent. What we could do with is the permanent feature of either Jess or Kay or both, giving up their laps for doggie massages while we watch an episode of QI without getting up 27 times to play the NO or is it YES game. I must remind Jess that Doggie Day Care was her original dream….

Today, there’s a new experiment on the horizon, i’m going out. I’m actually leaving the building. I’m driving out of the gate and haven’t made up my mind whether to turn left or right at the end of drive. Clearly, this action is going to incur some penalties but for the sake of being completely stir crazy for another day, i think it’ll be worth it!

In the distance i can hear something… sounds very much like a snakeskin mule and i don’t mean the donkey kind!

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

“Looking forward to meeting him”, they said.

“I’ll write a blog”, I said.

“It’s easy”, she said….

Well….

Anything and everything is easy when you have time, energy and the wherewithal to actually begin, never mind complete a task, but I have just spent 3.2 weeks in a cave of dominant darkness and a foreboding of end of life as we had come to know it!

Ok, a little unfair. Actually, a HUGE unfairness. In those 3.2 weeks, we managed a significantly magnificent Christmas, followed by a quieter but by no means less of a magnificent New Year. We popped Champagne, and opened presents. Quaffed Ferraro Rocher, Brandy sauce, Bread Sauce and Cranberry Sauce in copious amounts to slather over copious turkey sandwiches which no one really wanted but all felt compelled to eat, minus the crusts obviously. They count as calories no one needs and are better saved for more Ferrero’s.

We welcomed children in their finery and glorious grandchildren in velvet, ribbons and braces. We witnessed first steps from first boys and Disney Princesses from our quartet of girls, how lucky we are!
And in the midst of all the joy and frivolity, came Moxley; 5 kilos of golden kinetic energy in a four legged costume that wasn’t Disney but a strong dose of reality.. Yep, we got a dog. A puppy, a sleep depriver, a house invader and a kitchen roll and nappy sack depletist! Seriously, how can something that size produce that amount of anything.
Thankfully we discovered on ‘first walk’ day that Moxley, much like us, likes the pub and in particular our pub. Obviously, we only took him to socialise him, we really didn’t want to go. Sometimes you have to be a little unselfish and do things for the benefit of others so that’s what we did. We spent a couple of hours on a mizzly grey afternoon in our favourite hostelry with a roaring log fire supping local ale and less local rosè , swapping dog tales ( not tails, that’d be gruesome!) all for the sake of socialising our new family member. It was tough but that’s the kind of family we are, always looking out for others…

Joy! After 3 and a bit weeks, no night call, just an early morning howl, as sweet as birdsong. Oh how we’ve missed our cups of tea in bed contemplating the day ahead. I shall never take that opportunity for granted again.

First day back to normality of the working kind today so catching up around the house and maybe even begin writing a diary..

Lovely warm house and a quiet moment, .. bliss..

That’s what I envisaged when I sat at laptop. Two sentences later and I capture The Tesco delivery arriving…. clearly, I’m not supposed to be starting this just yet.
Bags at the ready, and quick exchange of Christmas pleasantries with the amiable Tesco man, when the Golden hurricane makes a leap for freedom. Fortunately Tesco man has it covered and brings him back in whilst I attach a lead and Tesco man begins to build a created barrier. So far, so good.

Then the Carry On movie began. What looked like 5 tons, (in comparison to 5 kilos), of sandy coloured muscle bounded across the garden, our garden. Our garden with the gate wide open not just to Tesvo man but seemingly any dog, Tim or Harry. I screeched, Tesco man screeched twice as loud and jumped in the house, my house, closing the door firmly behind him. Me , Tesco man and a docile dog on this side of door and The Incredible hunk of a mastiff on the other. What are the chances on the balance of probability that in an approximate 5 minute window of opportunity when the gate is left open, does a Mountain beast decide to escape the clutches of its owner?

I will just tell you no Delivery men, homeowners or Golden Retriever puppies were harmed in this incident and the Mountain beast went back to where it came from which is G knows where or to whom and all over within minutes. How quickly that quiet morning disappeared from my memory..

Steve and I are now on first name terms and I hadn’t needed to call DG home but it’s incredible what 3.1 weeks of virtually no sleep can do to your imagination! MailOnline would’ve had great fun putting together that headline, doubt Tesco need the advertising though!