So here we are. A year has passed, and we have been a year without a Welsh Terrier in our lives. It still seems incredibly weird.

I knew that today would bring tears. Even though I know that Boy Boy is here with us in spirit. Wiglet? Well she came back, as only Wiglet could. Here she is in a shrunken boil wash version….

But that is for another story.

Grief is such a funny thing, although RD and I are united in so many things, grief is so personal. He woke up this morning more tired than when he went to bed, I have been irritable with life (a little bit.) Both of us grieving in our own ways. The girls have given me lots of kisses, dogs always know.

As you know RD and I love all our furries, every single one. You have never ‘met’ Snowy the Dude, the other half of my sandwich when RD were in the first throes of ‘The War.’ He and Molly Kitten would sit either side of me, squashing me, to tell me I would be okay. And eventually at that terrible time, I would fall asleep if only for ten minutes.

Snowy was such a character, he would often fart and then walk away from RD in disgust, with a look of disdain on his face as if to say ‘Was that you, you smelly dirty bastard!’ He left a huge hole when he died. The hardest part was that he would follow me everywhere pitter pattering on our wooden floors in our old house, and the silence after he had gone was deafening. It reminds me that over time it did get easier but some of that was because twenty months later Harley came into our lives. And that is how our love affair with two rescued Welshies began.

But these Welsh Terriers, they are a breed unto themselves. Loving dogs, but not too many kisses, they didn’t want you to have too much. They loved a cuddle but were also fiercely independent, and stubborn even aloof at times. Harley was such a bastard he would growl at RD when he came to bed! Never Wiglet though, she was just so happy to be loved.

I love my girls that I have now dearly, but like most dogs they need you to show love and affection all the time, not the Welshies, they didn’t give a shit if you were in the room or not.

I miss that.

But …. I said that when this year had passed I would take Harley off my screensaver on my iPad. I would take the photo off my phone of them both looking out of the window, and the way it is framed so poignantly…

Looking at this picture you can see how Boy Boy loved her so. I think that when she left he gave up fighting the cancer that would eventually claim his life. They were more of a team than we ever realised, and he became old within days of losing her. Wiglet was with us for six years, and Harley was with us for nine.

I cannot explain the Welshie way, but I don’t think I will ever find it again.

Onwards and upwards. We have been sent new babies to care for, and my God they have kept us sane, and busy.

Today marks a beginning of something new. Just not sure if I can remove those photos just yet… but perhaps at the weekend.

I have been blessed. I am blessed

I love you Bear Bear, there will always be a Welshie shaped hole in my heart.

No more crying mummy.

Rosie