We Need To Talk About Jane

It’s a long old month. About 42 days long!! By the time they pay you early (woohoo we’re rich) and then don’t pay you again until the very last day (lucky to make it through the divorce-rich Blue Monday mid January,) you’re on your hands and knees. The stretching days get us through it as we marvel on a daily basis that it’s lighter in the mornings and afternoons as if we never knew this was going to happen. That element of delightful surprise is what brings us alive. Never taking the daylight for granted.

We’ve had everything from -10 degrees to a super bomb of a storm. We’ve had rain but not actually that much. We’ve had sunshine. We’ve had snow. All in all, it’s been a pretty good month.

I struggled to let the Christmas tree go. Cam, Amy and Rhiannon went to a lot of bother to get it and Spook did a great job of securing it. There seemed no need to dismantle it and it became a winter tree.

I read my coffee leaves and they said that Santa agreed I could hold onto the tree at least until a big storm threatened to blow it over.

When it got frosty I re-established the bird table and then spent even longer over my breakfast coffee.

This has created gang warfare amongst the Robins, party time on the grass for a big flock of Chaffinches, some nibbles from Tits, great and small, and a Woodpecker.

The men of the household are not sure about my decoration of the table. As I haven’t planted a garden I got some fake daisy lights to replace the festive tree.

I think it’s delightful though my flower growing friends would encourage me to plant some real ones. Maybe this year.

My son was coming home after almost 2.5 years overseas and the big storm was chasing him across the Atlantic. Billy needed to listen to my over anxious fussing and join me in my anxious over eating, while my sister sent me minute by minute pictures of his plane journey as she tracked it on an app.

The donut really helped.

Thankfully Jane came into Billy’s life and she has helped to break up my endless whinging.

One has to remember that Billy doesn’t do dogs. Courr has sneaked in under the radar and is considered to be ‘almost civilised’ but really he is tolerated.

Jane has had a very unsettled period in her life as her owner died. She’s been spending a bit of time with Billy while she works out what she’s going to do.

Badass Bill would really have been the last person a wee dog would hang out with while pondering her future…..

Photo given to Billy by Mick Tigh and taken by Alex Gillespie. This man should not be approached.

This one, however, knows when a wee dog is sad and needing a rescue package.

She’s been working on him, right enough.

Oh she’s very good at it!!!

She barks plenty, so no one can sneak up on Billy. She doesn’t moan about stuff and she doesn’t prattle on. Whilst she enjoys a wee walk, she’s easily satisfied and if she could snuggle up in a cosy house all day, she’d choose that over stretching her tiny legs any day.

Jane, in her innocence, didn’t know about all the ‘rotten’ dogs that have come before her. Amongst them, Mali the Alsatian that Spike insisted they rescue when the boys were wee (it ran away regularly, ate a hole in the living room wall, ate the boys collected tadpoles etc) - Billy still scowls when you mention him. The giant Poodle which ate a Silkie hen. The owners gave Billy a bottle of whisky by way of apology. The Silkies never laid any eggs and Billy said it was the most productive the hen had ever been, thanks to that ‘rotten’ dog. Joy had rotten dogs when he first met her, and Billy’s own parents had rotten dogs that kept running away. Then along came Jane with her big doughy eyes.

And safely home came Finn, just ahead of the storm, catching the last flight out of London before it hit. A week after arrival he started work at the Saw Mill - I think that’s because he looks like a Lumberjack.

That’s what 2 years in Canada does for you. Only thing missing is an axe over his shoulder.