Inspired by my fellow blogger and cyber friend Kat I have included this picture. It pretty much sums up how we feel right now: incredibly sad.

There is a pervading air of sadness in our house since Molly died, she was here so long. This picture of the weeping willow weeping into the lake, all of which has been painted by the Hoar Frost, reminds me of a time of silence, and is pertinent to how we feel. Right now we need silence and solitude, just with each other and our remaining pets, who are also showing signs of grief.

But it is also pertinent because the Hoar Frost eventually thawed, and the willow came back to life in the spring; as we will too, once we have processed and sat with our pain. I know this.

I have been reading blogs today, and I was inspired by one to write a letter to myself about what I hope this year will hold, and what I hope for, and where I hope to be by the end of the year. For me that will be a good exercise because (as with all endings) I have been reminded (again) that life is short and to seize the moment. But I also know that what we think we want is not necessarily what we need.

It was not just a New Year, it is a new decade, and R/D and I had already decided to reflect on where we were ten years ago, and all the things that happened to us in our life. Not least moving here, and falling in love with Welsh Terriers. It is a poignant reminder that at the end of this decade they will not be here with us, another reminder to cherish every moment.

We will also reflect on what we have achieved, what we thought we wanted back then, and see how much of what we thought we needed we didn’t need at all. I will share some of that on here.

So today I am going to take the Christmas decorations down, it’s time to move into something new, and I am going to open my new journal (how apt that the other one ran out just as the new decade came into being!) and do my form of meditation. But not before I found out my journal from ten years ago and read what I wrote then.

Mellow New Year

Rosie