Instead of a diary this year I bought myself a planner, and said planner had a ‘Goals’ section. So, as is my want, off I went putting in the goals for the year: Buy a shed, get the van serviced, knock doors out, block doors up, put a summer-house up and put my office out there, because I now work from home. A couple of days later I had a revelation, or a reminder from my sub-conscious: ‘Where have you left any time for you? Where have you thought about any kind of mindfulness for you? Where are your goals for that?” I smiled to myself – here I go again I thought.

Every week day we get up at 5.45 in the morning, and before I start work at either 9 or 9.30 I have normally washed up, wiped down, put washing on, took Elfie out in the garden, fed the cat, peeled potatoes, fed the birds, sorted the wet washing out …….. need I go on? I have filled every minute between when RD leaves for work and when I start work. I have not given myself ten minutes to even sit and gather my thoughts. Well that had to change I thought.

So roll on to Sunday last. RD and I were saying what a life saver Elfie had been for u. How happy she was and what a beautiful easy-going dog she is. As she lay beside her daddy with a huge smile on her face.

And then ‘Life’ intervened. We got chatting about whether we would get another dog. We both knew that we would, but agreed that the best time would be the summer. We had our reservations as to whether that would be too long for Elfie. Would she then be used to being on her own? She is still a puppy now (only ten months at this time) and would be more open to another puppy. She was lonely, and bored at times. But we both agreed the summer would be a better time.

Off RD went to make another cup of tea and up popped a rescue pup on my facebook feed – a Fox Terrier; immediately followed by a friends post about her rescued Wheaten Terrier. Something made me go onto the Dogs.ie website where we found our beautiful Elfie girl. I was looking for Wheaten and fox terriers but all terriers came up and top of the list were these….

Now to top it all they were in Donegal, they were black and tan – an homage to the Welshies, but not Welshies. There will only ever be two Welshies for us. The puppies were Lakelands, with a naughty touch of Beagle in there.

I looked at RD – he looked at me and on a Sunday afternoon, when we should have been ironing and putting up our shed, we found ourselves travelling across the county with Elfie in tow. We had already decided we were going to call the puppy Luna. (Elf like to go with our beautiful girl.)

When we arrived there were only two puppies left, both so tiny. I asked the guy if he had a home for the other one and he said he had a man from Dublin interested but there was something suspect about him. I looked at them and thought ‘How do I choose, and leave one behind on it’s own? What about the dodgy man in Dublin?’ RD came in with Elfie and said ‘We would have them both if we could.’ I knew he was thinking what I was thinking and that is how come we now have Luna and Pixie, the tiny little runt.

The look on my husband’s face in that top photo says it all. We still cry for our Welshie babies, but we have been led to find a new family to look after.

I think this year has started with a happy bang! But I will still make time to stand and stare, mainly at my family of puppies. They won’t be puppies for long.

As always we wrote our Goals down, and :Life changed them.

Rosie