Moving on as you do, and launching into the start of a new week, I've just noticed I still have to complete the Seven Links Project bequeathed me by Wylye Girl.
I was looking forward to this one before events overtook me last week. SO, let it be this week's Occupational Therapy.
Apparently all I have to do is list out my favourite posts in seven defined categories, then pass on the baton to three other blogs.
All passing readers have to do is  get hankies ready as we go down memory lane, then duck in case I pass the baton on to them!

The first category is the most difficult - I have been asked to specify "My Most Beautiful Post". Now Cheesetown has its moments, and isn't completely unphotogenic, but I haven't been waxing lyrical about the place.  Likewise there's been some beautiful  photos of Ned and the Cherub thrown up here.  But I've been asked for a beautiful post not a beautiful photo ...So I'm going to define  beautiful post as being one with beautiful sentiments... hem...hem... well the sentiment of acceptance in "The photos are GREAT" is bittersweet if not strictly beautiful.

The second category, "My Most Popular" is sadly one of my most recent. The aftermath of Ned's death, spelled out in "The Drugs Don't Work" generated a lot of comments - which would be one way of ranking popularity.  This "popularity" is obviously due to my readers being kind people who are concerned abut me rather than than sadists keen to watch the metaphorical car crash.

Category three is "My Most Controversial Post". Again I'm stretching definitions here, but I'm going to go with "For Gods Sake Don't Do a Post About Payroll, as it's the one most likely to get me fired if anyone from work were to read it.

Moving on to category four, I have to specify "My Most Helpful Post. Now since this blog came into being as a way of my metaphorically howling whilst nursing Wayne through terminal cancer, you would think that there would be lots more help for anyone else in the same situation. There isn't.    This apology is the best example of helpful I can find.

The fifth category is "The Post Whose Success Surprised Me". After yet more lateral thinking, it was a toss up between Making Lemonade with Lemons, where I was just surprised anyone commented at all, and "I'd Rather Have an Easter Egg which I initially thought  was too maudlin. (See what I did there? I cheated)

The sixth category is "The Post That Didn't Get The Attention It Deserved". In retrospect we have a clear winner in "Don't Read This if You Are Remotely Depressed"**. At the time I understood only that Ned's fits would get worse until they possibly couldn't be contolled any more.  In the end he was done in by the ever increasing drugs he was taking to contol them. ** (Looking back, that's a good by line for this blog....)

The last category is "The Post That I'm Most Proud Of". I like  Bruce and the Badlands. For all that it's a story about me racing Wayne back to the hospice as his condition had deteriorated, it has a germ of a good memory in that I was with him and we were back to the old jokes and arguments. It still makes me cry when I think back of going back to the empty car and the song we'd been listening to was still playing although Wayne had been admitted to the hospice.

Finally, assuming anyone has waded through the misery so far, I need to pass on the baton. This is difficult. Not least because, blogwise, I don't get out much. I tend to stick within a tight bloggy circle whose members have a disconcerting habit of ceasing to blog. There's a couple who have already done this meme.  Add to this, that in a forthcoming update I will be nominating my favourite small blogs too.  At this rate I shall be tagging random blogs which now you think of it might be an idea.

I have, therefore, come up with the totally brilliant and completely impartial wheeze of  tagging the three most recent entries in my blogroll. At time of writing these are:-

Trish at Mums Gone To
Speccy at Me and Mine And Other Bits
and  Gwen at Auntie Gwen's Diary

Aye, d'ye see wee Macy off on a run? 

Macy? On a run?? Yer kiddin me..

Aye, that was her, ken.

Macy???

Aye Macy! Ye deaf or what? She was aff oot along the old back road. iPod, joggers the lot. Nearly made it to the bridge and a'.

Withoot her wee dug though?

Aye withoot the dug... Cryin her eyes out.

Bloody shame that.

Aye bloody shame.  D'ye hear any more about her mother?

Och don't ask.

Naw?

Naw.

That was me.  That was me, tanking it down the M9, seeing how fast the Mazda will go. I'm pushing the old rustbucket to the edge.The speedo goes to 140, I've got 110 - 114 - 120.
And that howling  in the background, that was me too.  I 'm yelling "Yeahwhatyigonnydo What yougonnaedohey? Eh? Bring it on... Bringitonyibastardfuckingbringitonbastardbastardbastard"
I may or may not have been hammering the steering wheel.

But they've put a big roundabout at the end of the M9, called the Newbridge roundabout, and there's a 50mph speed limit with speed cameras - so I had to slow down and take a deep breath, and come to my senses.  None of this was big or clever - or even a particularly good idea since there was still one critter who hadn't died on me in the past 18 months. The Cherub still needs the odd steer to do homework, eat vegetables and get to bed before dawn.

Drugs. Drugs were called for. Bugger strength and fortitude and pulling yourself together. This needs drugs.
Drugs will sort it all.
And this being Scotland, I can get free drugs; free happy drugs from my GP's drop in surgery.
There is nothing wrong with this plan.
Zip. Nadda. Go to doc, come home be happy again.
Or at least stop screaming.

Luckily I was seen by the same GP who had been called out to the house to sign Wayne's death certificate. So he knew the history.  Even better he's a dog  owner himself, so he knows. 
He took one look at me and prescribed Citalopram. One to be taken last thing at night.
Except  I am missing Ned now when I'm awake. So I took one immediately.

......At first nothing happened. Then it all got fluffier. Fuff..That's me lying on my bed just staring at the ceiling...Fuff  Hey... kid will need dinner..I'm not sleeping, I'm not awake I'm just floating...for hours...
Fuff I am not fully conscious, but not sleeping yet.   It's  a schleep.

If I visited anyone yesterday I hope you noticed the pacific haze...Schleep typink..

I can't remember dinner last night.  Although I do remember watching the grill for ages and ages and ages. I remember phone calls, but am not entirely sure who they were from.

Today I will be on half the dose. And  glad that I'm only half as upset as my GP expected me to be.

Best to be tough.  Because if I started howling I wouldn't stop. 
So I started with the clearout as soon as we dropped him off at the vet's for the last time. Bob next door helped me carry him out. He was dead on the kitchen floor you see.

His bed and blankets were the first to go.  He liked that bed, and used to bury toys and old bones in it.  Which is why his old santa toy and a couple of old bones fell out as I was putting it in the bin. I'm tough.  I can do this.  

And while I was out in the back yard  I binned his old deflated football and mashed up tennis ball collection.  He liked to pester me with those on the rare times I was gardening. He had his own priorities. He usually won.  Because he was actually the boss.











I even remembered to dig up a chewy he'd buried just the day before.  Wally and I watched him bury it behind the tree.  We were laughing because for once he didn't want his 11am chewy, and was saving it for later. We never knew it was because his kidneys were failing.

Back in the house I was ruthless with the big cushion he slept on the hall landing.  And toys he had buried under it. He was a collie, a working dog, he was neat. He kept his toys buried or hidden or lined up ready for use. It's all in the bin. Can't face the prolonged goodbye of recycling.











 His leads. Not that we used them. Ned was a dog who always came when called. Always.  And he walked to heel.. See the dog just waiting outside the newsagents?  No lead? Not tied? That was Ned. The leads are binned.




















His pills - he was on 360mg epiphen a day.  It was the drugs that did for his kidneys. Binned along with a carrier bag of pigs ears and filled bones- I'd just bought a new supply last week from our fabourite pet shop thrugh in Milngavie.












New tennis balls?  Because on his morning walk he chased balls I hit with my tennis racket. Binned along with the tennis racket.  And the dog walking shoes and the poop scoop and plastic bag collection. Because there will be no more morning walks.






So no need for the new frisbee that he loved, or my old rucksack (I'm on a roll now), or the dogwalking jacket.

I found his squeaky duck toy found behind a sofa Have I mentioned yet how each of his toys had a name? He would be able to identify and bring ducky, chicken, ball, kong, football..They are all gone. They are all in the bin. Along with-
The tinned food
The dental sticks
The dry dog food
Both the old chipped food bowl and the new jazzy water bowl
The hairbrush he hated
His old towel - it's still got the mud stains from Friday...

Binned.  Binned the lot of it.

Thought I'd done it all.  Thought it was covered and I have griefproofed my house.  Then this morning I spotted two toys I'd missed. Hidden at the bottom of the bed.  Lined up perfectly.


And no amount of Bachs Flower Remedy is going to cure this one.

Ned died this morning.
There are no words for this.

NO FUCKING WORDS.