Its been 6 years since I've made a news post and I honestly can't think of much that has changed with me.

I'm living better it must be said. Lost a shit ton of weight, but more to go still but is always the battle.

I'm doing well in my job, making some decent enough money so it doesn't feel like I'm paycheck to paycheck anymore.

Internally though I'm always struggling. If I'm not berating myself, I'm reminding myself of the fleeting nature of time and how everything must end. Its not great.

Think I need to have more fun. Suggestions welcome.

I'm crying
I'm crying
I'm crying
I'm crying
I'm crying

im asleep

No, he really is a little shit.

Like, he chews shoes, barks at the tiniest sound, growls at people when they come inside the house who aren't me, nips me in play, nipped my brothers when they had their backs turned properly, tries to hump me way too much, covered in knots and tangles which I need to get shaved off at a groomers (not his fault really), goes to toilet in the worse places indoors, gets empty wrappers out of my bin to try and eat, bites slugs until they die a sad painful death and digs up the garden.

But look at him.

He's an adorable little shit. Hard to stay mad at that.

A lot bigger than his picture I had, but then he was around 3 months old in that. He's now 7 1/2 months old here and appears to have had a major growth spurt you see 12 year old boys get, when they appear to shoot up a foot in height in the space of a week.

He's sweet though. This picture below was taken just over an hour after we got him home. He was very nervous straight away. Didn't want to get out of the car, he had felt safe in there. I picked him up to carry him indoors and then he struggled, gave my arm two masive bruises and little cuts when he tried to get away. Not bites, just bad scratches. Anyway, he spent the hour just sniffing the grass in the garden, taking things slow. We fed him a bit, he stayed away from us mostly though, then suddenly he's just running, trying to round me up as collies tend to do, and jumping at me, letting me stroke him, then trying to lick my neck, then he's on all fours rolling on his back for me. Its as if a lightbulb switched on in his mind and he knew that I was good people, not the bad kind he'd met in his life up to that point. And I still believe that dogs can sense when humans are dog lovers. Frankie, my old dog, she used to pine when my dads friend came over many years ago. Cause he was just like a big dog himself, and he showed a lot of love for her, for any dog and I swear they can sense the love in them and I that little Oscar could sense that from me. Sense that I wasn't going to turn on him, that things would be good with me.

Anyway, we then spent an hour or so playing out there. The poor boy looked confused when I threw him a tennis ball as if the concept of having fun was a new thing to him. He got it though after a few tries. Now he loves to plays, its as if he's making up for time lost there. Which is a little tragic.

Eventually me and my mother went inside the house and we let him slowly make his own way in, Let him sniff out the rooms, let him get comfortable with it all. 2 weeks later the garden is a mess, my bedroom is a constant bomb site and oh god the barking. But that will take time and he is still young. I just hope he can learn to love people just as much as we love him.

More pics;

1

2 (note my Frankie shrine in the background)

3

Its something I've given a lot of thought to, and both me and my mother have both desperately missed a dog presence in the home. Its only (only) been 4 months since I lost Frankie and that wound is never going to heal I think and this is I hope in no means a replacement. Like anyone could replace that fucking dog in my heart. But this feels right. My mum wanted to get a border collie puppy from a breeder and I was indecisive. Then I read about the amount of dogs in need in homes across Eastern Europe where they have much less hope and chance for survival and I thought why not adopt then? So this below is the dog I'm getting. His name is Findus (which I will change), and he is 7 months old, a cross breed or law only knows what, a puppy found on the streets a few months back on his own and so he will travel to the UK, be with me in 2 weeks and hopefully remain with me for the rest of what I hope are his happy days.

Oh yeah, and the healthy living thing has been very up and down, mostly down. So I need a break again, a proper one. Just to stop thinking in numbers and weights for a while. Gets me beyond down.

Sometime early last year I started a Weight Diary and I'd done really well losing weight and generally getting fitter. I hit a dip of form towards the latter of the year due to poor motivation so stopped updating then things really took a tumble during December.

I'm here to continue though from where I left off with hopefully positive results. I was unsure how to do this new diary as I can't just start over and ignore the good work I'd done but also there was a huge gap of inactivity that I need to take account for. So I will drop the 'week 1, week 2, etc' business.

Gagsy's Weight Diary 2.0

5th February: Weight loss - 2 1/2 lbs

12th February: Weight loss - 1 1/2 lbs

19th February: Weight loss - 0 lbs

26th February: Weight loss - 1 1/2 lbs

5th March: Weight loss - 2 lbs

19th March: Weight gain - 2lbs

Total Weight loss so far: 61 1/2 lbs

I never went the week before because we had some terrible snow here and I didn't much want to venture out in it, I don't imagine I lost that week anyway. This week I'm going to blame this on 'womens issues'. Because in cause you manly men did not know women retain more water during their monthly visit and when I visited the scales tonight I was in full flow sort of speak.

Better luck next week hopefully.
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From Callum to Harry to Oliver to Frankie.

Its been 2 months since I lost my dog and besides still missing her its made me realise just how lonely I truly am.

Lets backtrack a bit.

(Warning long unnecessary details about my teenage years ahead. If you read this all you're a saint and a fool.)

I got my dog when I was 16 which was about a year after I lost my closest friends (stop me if you've heard this one before..) I lost them because I was suffering from depression and hadn't realised it. I became withdrawn around them and even more after a bad drunken incident which unfortunately our friendship could not recover from. I say 'unfortunately' but I realised later on that I was better off without them. They could not see that I was suffering alone, didn't try to help me, just cut me off and while the sting of their actions still hurts even now sometimes, I feel better without those particular girls in my life.

The problem though was that it made me mistrust people somewhat.

I was in Sixth Form when I was 16 and I made friends in my class no problem, but I only stayed a year and once I left I just naturally lost touch with the friends I made. I felt no real reason to bother trying to stay friends with them.

It probably didn't help that at that time I was getting quite heavily into the internet. Our family got its first laptop when I was 15 and since I lost my close childhood friends I had discovered the joys of talking to people online. It was a different kind of world, one that I could (can) hide behind of. I lied about who I was to begin with for some reason I do not truly know but I still got close to people over the net, closer than I maybe ever really had before in real life and this probably ruined how I sought social interaction so that when I made friends in real life I just didn't feel much beyond being a casual acquaintance.

So In the meantime I had this little puppy. This little dog that I'd wanted for years. Sure she was never meant to actually be MINE, more a family dog, one I think my dad thought he'd be the 'master' of. That was never going to happen though. I picked her from her litter, I named her, from that day we got her I coddled her, I literally held her the entire journey home. And so as soon as she was old enough to be trusted around the house she would follow me. My dad would walk her every morning and she loved those walks, cherished them, but the moment she was home the first place she would go would be to my room, just to make sure I was still there. This is a trend she carried on up until her death. If my mum or anyone took her out, once she was back she'd be straight upstairs to find me. If I wasn't in my room then she'd go searching for me.

We became each others constants.

And people can argue that we force this life on the dogs, that they'd be gone from our sights if they really could, and whatever, but I never asked for my dog to love me back. She appreciated that I was the one who fed her, walked her, played with her, gave her treats but I was also the one who had to be cruel, had to bathe her, had to scold her, had to take her to the mean vets. Despite that, to say we bonded is an understatement. I treated her like a normal woman would a child and she treated me as whatever it is dogs seem to cherish and adore to be around.

I went to college, made friends. I make friends. its something that I've never actually struggled with. Its as if I have this weird ability to read people, or to know what they want in a friend. I guess it could be a form of manipulation? I just know how to be a good friend to people even if my heart isn't really into it. So yeah I went to college for a year and made friends. Once I left the same thing happened. I just lost contact with the people I had befriended. I think I went to visit them the next year when they were back for their second year but that was it. Now I just randomly like a few things on a few facebooks of theirs.

But this is what I do. Life forces me in social settings and I make friends, then life pulls me away from these settings and I just lose interest in maintaining any friendships I made during that time.

Someone on here hit the nail on the head really when he said to me;

"I don't get why you're so lonely. Not lonely, but you choose to be alone"

And its so desperately the truth. I do choose to be alone and before I could justify it because while I had a lack of interest in people, I put all my love into this dog (bestiality joke??? no). I confided in her, I enjoyed my time with her, trusted her, understood her. And those are all things that friendship is about. I got/get social interaction from people over the net and then put all the physical aspects of friendship onto my dog.

Now she's gone and I kinda have nothing. I have family in my life who I love and who love me but who I don't wish to talk to properly about things. Could I tell them any of this? No. Do I want to more importantly? No, never.

And people will forever underestimate how important a pet can be to a person. Perhaps though my dog was too important to me. I did put her on a pedestal really but I wouldn't change that. My only regret actually now is that I didn't cherish her enough. That there were days when I didn't take her for walks because I couldn't be bothered and thats mainly what she loved to do, be out walking and especially with me. Never will I forget when a woman in the park many years ago once said to me that she would see my dad walking the dog and yet the dog looked much happier when she was out with me. Never forget that. And I hate that I didn't give her more walks, hate that we didn't explore the area more, hate that on her last day she couldn't even walk 50 yards without needing to stop, sit and catch her breath for an age. I also hate that I'm crying right now remembering that.

I can't even remember what my point was. I think I started this trying not to be all depressive and melodramatic but once I get flowing it just doesn't stop, feelings just ooze out of me and maybe its for the best to just let it out somewhere, because I do miss her so much still (its like an ache that suddenly throbs when you dwell on it) and I'm realising how lonesome I am, how much I've neglected my social needs over the years due to bad friends and a loving dog. And I offer myself no solution, just an acknowledgment of what I've done, what I'm doing to myself. Will I change anything soon? Not likely. One life changing goal at a time eh? But I recognise now that I am lonely, that it is something that is not just going to go away and not something I want a new pet to filll the void with.

I was meant to be posting a photo. That was my point right when I started this right?

But yes a photo of me and Frankie when I was 16 and she was still a troublesome pup. My mum found a load of photos after the dog died which I'm keeping in my room with her ashes atm. There were never many of me and Frankie as I'm forever someone who prefers to be behind the camera not in front of it. There were 3 of me and Frankie. One at Christmas with me sitting with my pile of gifts and her sitting by my feet, one with me sitting on the sofa with a laptop in my lap (surprise surprise) and her laying next to me, and the third which I completely forgot existed.

It makes me rather happy to look at it though. Minus my messy hair and that double chin of doom of course. But theres just something about it.

I think it feels symbolic.

Me holding her, looking to her, her resting (her front leg there) on my arm, us both pulling the same move (with our mouths). We had nearly 10 years together and not much changed between then and well 2 months ago. I was always holding her above others, looking at her with continuing wonder and love, she would rest against my legs at night or her back against mine when I was on my computer, and as for pulling the same move? Well I can't help but think of the same unbounded joy we both shared when I got home from anywhere. She would greet me as if I'd been gone for a lifetime and I would greet her the same way back.

And 2 months on shes still gone and I'm still alone. The problem is that I'm aware of this now.

First I just want to thank everyone for their kind words on my previous blog. I was going to reply to them all but I just couldn't at the time really and I'm trying to move on a bit.

But thank you everyone.

The point of this new blog is to tell you a little story. It actually happened about 3 or 4 days after Frankie died but its kinda been on my mind a bit since then. I can't deny that the story has made me feel a bit better about the event, not that I can explain any of it.

Anyway, my mum was at work (shes a nurse) and she was just sitting in a corridor keeping an eye an one of the patients while he was walking about. And out of another room comes this elderly lady. She doesn't know my mum at all, and she just looks at my mum and she says;

"Theres a dog sitting behind you"

My mum felt her heart thump a little but wrote it off straight away really. The old lady has the beginnings of dementia (mostly just memory lose atm). Still she asked the old lady "What?"

And the patient says to my mum again;

"Behind you theres a dog sitting on that chair. Its white with black ears and a brown face."

My mum is a little confused and scoffs but she keeps thinking about it during her day, and later she finds the old lady in her room and shows her this picture below, my mums asks her "Like that?"

"Yes! Thats the dog!" She exclaimed.

Even later when another nurse with waiting on the patient, she told that nurse (who is a friend of my mums), "I'm not making it up. There really was a dog sitting behind that nurse."

My mum called me a few hours after this event to tell me the story. I questioned whether she was telling the truth about this story because I'm skeptical as fuck, but she assured me over and over that she could never make up something like that, and that at first she wasn't going to tell me because she thought I'd get upset. And yeah when she told me the story I did start crying quite a lot but it made me really much better. Just thinking of the dog being there still.

I can't explain stories about spirits and ghosts because I don't believe in an afterlife and I've never seen anything myself but I know people who have, people I trust so when they tell me these stories, I believe they have seen what they claim to.

This here I especially can't explain, because it wasn't my mum who claimed to see Frankie, but a woman who didn't know her at all, and to say those colours is beyond weird. If she was facing you fully forward, all you would see is white and of course her black ears and brown face. If the lady was lying, why use those colours? Its not the most typical of colouring on a dog.

But yeah I mostly just wanted to share the story really because its really the only thing thats made me feel better since I lost Frankie. Just thinking of her just being there still with us even beyond death. Its actually rather comforting.

Today I had to put down my dog, my best friend, my Frankie.

It was so heartbreaking. I've had that dog since she was a pup. A little 7 week old cute as a button puppy. She would have been 10 on February 1st. Sadly it wasn't to be.

Everything was so sudden. She was fine all yesterday, even this morning at 6am when I let her out in the garden, just fine. I then went back to sleep for a bit and at around 10, my mum shouts down that the dog isn't walking properly. I practically jumped out of bed, downstairs to check on her. At first I thought 'oh shes just hurt herself after a walk or jumping off a bed again' but once she came upstairs with me to my room, I watched her and her breathing was so deep and laboured. Like every breath was a struggle. I called the vets then. Got her seen shortly and the vet said straight away that she looked anemic. They then kept her there for a few hours to do a blood test while I went home and worried myself online reading up on anemia in dogs. After the blood test they did an ultrasound and found cancer from her spleen.

The option of an operation was risky as chances were she wouldn't survive it and I didn't really want her dying on an operating table. The only other option was going to a specialist for thousands of pounds and the only difference being them being able to do a blood transfusion if needed, but still her chances were slim at best. So we had to get her put down.

And god it was hard so damn hard. We got to take her home and for some extra money got the vets to come here to do it. Which was better. I put Frankie on my bed, where she slept mostly and then just stayed with her. At that point she could barely move. Just had her eyes and ears alert. Couldn't even wag her tail properly and still breathing so deep.

The only time she responded was when the vets came. They knocked on the front door and she lifted her head and looked to my bedroom door. And she kept looking as they made their way upstairs. I think she knew what they had come to do. She could sense it, because even when my dad came to say goodbye or when someone knocked on the door for my brother she never reacted. Just when the vets came. It was weird.

And they did it and I stayed with her and just stroked her and kissed her and she was looking right at me as she stopped breathing and I just couldn't breathe myself then. It was hard to watch her go. Just seeing my best friend, the thing that saved me as a teen when I had no one, just watch her die, it was horrible. I miss her so much already and I can't believe that I never get to see her again. That she won't be jumping on my bed tonight once I go to sleep. That she won't wake me up by wagging her tail powerfully against my desk so that I get up and let her out. She won't cry everytime I say the word 'walkies' and just go mad until we're out the door together. I won't get to walk her again. She won't come lay against my back, like right now when I'm on my computer and just sleep with her head on my pillows after a big deep sigh and her back warming mine. None of it no more and it hurts.

I fucking love you Frankie. Not even joking when I say that you are my best friend.

So I'm just going update this weekly I think, it might help motivate me too because I don't want to look like a further failure by having a bad week.

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Week 1: Weight loss - 6 lbs

Week 2: Weight loss - 6 lbs

Week 3: Weight loss - 1/2 lb

Week 4: Weight loss - 5 1/2 lbs

Week 5: Weight loss - 4 lbs

Week 6: Weight loss - 1 lb

Week 7: Weight loss - 2 lbs

Week 8: Weight loss - 3 lbs

Week 9: Weight loss - 3 lbs

Week 10: Weight loss - 3 lbs

Week 11: Weight loss - 3 lbs

Week 12: Weight loss - 4 lbs

Week 13: Weight loss - 1 lb

Week 14: Weight loss - 3 1/2 lbs

Week 15: Weight gain - 1/2 lb

Week 16: Weight loss - 5 lbs

Week 17: Weight gain - 2 lbs

Week 18: Weight loss - 2 1/2 lbs

Week 19: Weight loss - 0

Week 20: Weight loss - 3 lbs

Week 21: Weight loss - 0

Week 22: Weight gain - 1 lb

Week 23: Weight loss - 2 1/2 lbs

Week 24: Weight loss - 1 1/2 lbs

Week 25: Weight loss - ??????

Week 26: Weight loss - 0

Week 27: Weight loss - 4 lbs

Week 28: Weight gain - 1 lb

Week 29: Weight loss - ??????

Week 30: Weight loss - 1 lb

Week 31: Weight gain - 2 1/2 lbs

Week 32: Weight loss - 6 lb

Week 33: Weight loss - 1 1/2 lbs

Week 34: Weight gain - 2 1/2 lbs

Week 35: Weight loss - ??????

Week 36: Weight loss - 1 lb

Week 37: Weight loss - 1 1/2 lbs

Week 38: Weight gain - 2 1/2 lbs

Week 39: Weight gain - 2 1/2 lbs

Week 40: Weight loss - 2 lbs

Week 41: Weight gain - 3 lbs

Week 42: Weight gain - 1/2 lb

Week 43: Weight gain - 1 lb

Week 44: Weight loss - 1 1/2 lbs

Week 45: Weight gain - 1/2 lb

Total Weight loss so far: 59 lbs
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Its been a funny month. Struggling to get used to my new shifts and not getting about much I put on some weight. Naturally I wasn't eager to update this blog that week, plus I wanted to wait till my nephew was born and he was late! The next week I missed my Weight Watchers meeting as I was sleeping. Got back into things after that but its been slow. Taken me 3 weeks to get off the weight I put on during week 34. Which is a little concerning but hopefully I'll push on now. I'm more used to my new shifts so got my eating habits sorted. The issue now is still getting out for my dog walking. Going in the right direction though.

If I can manage another pound off next week then I'll be happy. 5 pounds to go till it'll be 5 stone lost. Which would be incredible. Be like losing the average weight of an 8 year old child off my person. Insane. I need to get there.

~
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This is Callum. My third nephew and by no means any less special. He's my eldest brothers first child and it feels like this one has been trying to get here for a long time. Longer than the 9 months it took for him to arrive, longer than the couple of early miscarriages my brothers girlfriend had. Its like we've just been waiting for him forever. At least thats how I feel.

My brother Dan, he's going to be a fantastic father. And I mean no disrespect to my other brother, he's a decent dad still. Decent enough. Its just for Dan this is what he has wanted for a long long time and there was a huge worry that it would never come for him and Alison (his girlfriend). And its going to be just natural for him to be a great dad. Callum is a lucky boy and we're lucky to have him here too.