Not in the mood lately

Just haven't been in the mood to post to this blog lately.  I think it's because here is where I loved to write about life with Amy and Ben ... and of course now it's just Ben and I.  Amy has left such an enormous hole in our lives I think we're still trying to come to terms with her absence. 

We're feeling  like this!  I took Ben up to Start Point last week - we walked all the way round which Amy hadn't been able to do for a very long time. 

But as we climbed up towards the ridge we came to this point ...

... and the enormity of her absence took my breath away.  Amy wasn't part of my life for very long - just four and a half short years.  She was crippled when she came to me, and deeply unhappy - which she showed by withdrawing into herself, growling and biting (yes really) when I tried to show her life was worth living after all.  Perseverance paid off and over the course of about a year she became the most loving and loyal companion I could have wished for. 

That's not to say she was perfect - far from it!  She was the most stubborn, self-opinionated and frankly greedy dog I have ever owned.  She knew what was due to her as the most beautiful (in her opinion!) newfie that ever there was!  But she simply loved people, bustling up to all and sundry (particularly children) and collapsing at their feet in the hope of a tummy tickle.  Not to forget of course that she did once save a child's life, bringing a little girl in from the sea, in her long-ago youth.

Amy was also the only dog I have ever owned that would look admiringly at her own image in shop windows!  In fact she adored shopping.  She never had to be tied up outside a shop, but would wait for me as long as patience lasted - and if I took (in her opinion) too long then she'd bustle importantly inside to come and find me and tell me to hurry up!  I remember leaving her outside WH Smiths once, and coming out to find a total stranger tugging on her lead ... impossible to steal ... she wasn't going to budge an inch without me and at 147 lbs, no-one could make her!

So I've been immersing myself in work - which I love - not forgetting of course that the "Bustle" of Bustle and Sew was named for Amy ... and won't be posting here again for a little while.

Meanwhile you can keep up with some of the news (and the odd photo of Ben which creeps in occasionally) on Bustle & Sew, and I expect I'll be back again before too long with some new photos and stories about life here in Devon.