The Wicked Witch of the West is Meeeeelllllllllltttttttttttiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnggggggggggg

The office thermometer is registering 35 degrees! It's cooler outside than it is in here and it's the usual Monday morning mayhem. It's not uncommon for me to continue to process orders whilst talking on the phone, but a call this morning stopped me dead in my tracks - someones bulldog died suddenly on Saturday and she just didn't know how to cope, we offer bereavement counselling because we understand what it's like when everyone around you is trying to convince you it was "just a dog". The sudden death wasn't even anything to do with the heat, he was just sick but the poor little mite choked, you can imagine how much they are beating themselves up - what if we'd done this, what if we'd done that but at the end of the day when it's time it's time. The best piece of advice I was ever given is one that I regularly pass on - and that is to remember that there was entire lifetime ahead of that last awful day - try not to dwell on the end but celebrate the life, remember all the things that made you laugh - there's plenty of them and I bet that every now and again, you'll hear the tippy tap of the toe nails on the laminate or catch a glimpse of him sneaking onto the sofa out the corner of your eye - they never really leave us but it is so so hard to let go and accept what happened without the awful need to put the clock back just to that moment and try and do things differently. Just for those few minutes it didn't matter how uncomfortable I was as I really do feel like I'm melting and sometimes I wonder how I manage to come off the phone and carry on processing the orders like it never happened knowing that they put the phone down and the awful pain is still there. Hug your bulldog ....