A clean slate...

... for Knots in the String.

‘Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?’ LM Montgomery.

Life is so unpredictable that I gave up making New Year’s resolutions years ago. Each day now, I wake up and recall that ‘Every day is filled with limitless possibilities…’ Wessex Harry Pierce.

Who was Wessex Harry Pierce you may wonder? He was my best-est and much-mourned Terrier, named after a character in the BBC One show Spooks – Sir Harry Pierce, head of MI5, a pillar of the show, appearing in every episode. Rather like my darling boy in his life – appearing every single day.

So whilst yesterdays (in a general sense) may have been monumental cock-ups, a new day is always a clean slate waiting to be written upon. I think of a board, matte-black, and a new piece of pristine white chalk with soft white dust falling from the board with each new letter, each new word. Like the blackboard, life’s mistakes can be wiped away with a make-believe eraser, and one can begin again. If one wants. If one can detach from the past and live in the exact moment.

What price would any resolutions have been for 2024, with two major (unplanned) bowel surgeries and the shocking loss of my dog? I take note of those events and think I will just wake every day, put a smile on my face where possible and enjoy whatever comes my way. No frantic checking of a shimmer-list or any list really. If it happens, it happens. I wrote in the same vein about this at the end of 2023, so obviously nothing changes.

That’s not to say I don’t have plans. I don’t want to coddiwomple through life, wasting whatever time I have left. Remember, my mantra is:

But equally, I want to be adaptable.

Besides, by the time you read this, it will only be 10 days until we have a new family member with us.

A little butterball. A tumbleweed that rolls around trying to learn to pee in the right places, learning that he too will have a triple-handled name and that he could come to the call of at least two of them. For now, let’s just call him Roxham Young Terrier. (Roxham is the kennel’s prefix, so the little boy is a fully registered show-quality Jackie.)

(Wait for the little sneeze. I just love it… gives me such goosebumps)

As I said on Instagram, he’s a very serious young chap who spends time looking at the world as a philosopher would. Every now and then, he pootles and wombles around, giving a spontaneous and funny sideways jump of puppy joy. But in our brief acquaintance (three meetings), he seems to spend much time assessing. This of course may change as he realises he has his new family to himself. That he is Boss Dog and a Jack Russell at that. Accordingly, we’ve enrolled at Puppy School in February, with a view to further education after that. As we did with The Terrier. Actually when all’s said and done, it’s not the pup who has to change and be moulded, it’s septuagenarian us. We must be mellow and adaptive with the young one. This will be interesting… stand by for further developments.

Thus, as the new year moves forward, I will return to ballet class in January, having tried to teach myself that Tiktok routine of Candy Girl… in the coastal bathroom.

(Ye Gods! My legs come to about knee level on the retirés and developés.). In addition, I’ve found myself halfway through writing the contemporary novel and loving the writing. Probably because it’s set on my coast and also in Melbourne, which is one of my favourite cities. I hope it will be finished by end summer and available for distribution by end Northern Hemisphere autumn. It depends much on the Young Terrier.

In fact, everything depends on him – trips away to Maria Island on the boat. Gosh, even swimming time. A booked trip to Melbourne for the International Flower and Garden Show and for some ballet research for the novel. Picnics, ballet class. So much…

See? What price resolutions? What will be will be.

I’m reading Instant Karma by David Michie, also Buddhism for Pet Lovers by the same author - thoroughly enjoying them and grateful for them. I was also fortunate to receive book vouchers for Christmas, one of the my favourite gifts to receive. Yesterday I purchased the award-winning Days at the Morisaki Bookshop and its sequel More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop. Also The Cat who Taught Zen, which I have already finished. It was so wise and so delightfully illustrated.

If there’s any sort of lesson from the four books, it’s that I want to be more fluid, more peaceful – golly, maybe even wise! That I want to be outdoors amongst trees, gardens, the bush and coast as much as possible. I no longer wish to read and be confronted with bloodied swords and seaxes in historical fiction, trying to find a thinly-veiled storyline amongst the violence. Life is too real and too short for that. I have come to the conclusion that whilst I will always read Bernard Cornwell, Ben Kane and Giles Kristian in hist.fict because of their bard-like qualities, my hist.fict searches for now will be deep storytelling that doesn’t rely on bloodcurdling to progress the narrative.

So in the light of my more Zen desires, some suitable music, I think. Here’s to you, friends. Happy 2025. Let’s move through it together!