January 2023 (Rye)


Christmas already seems ages ago. 

The last many Christmas periods of small children, manic present buying, Christmas social functions, kinder graduations, school concerts, school booklists and then a business which scaled up before and after Christmas were so hectic. Our business was conveyancing and everyone seems to want to buy and sell and move before Christmas. With the business sold, I looked forward to a leisurely Christmas in 2022 but, even without work, the pre Christmas period still seemed hectic. 

As always, though, Christmas was also lovely - full of family and food :) Christmas rolled into the Boxing Day Test. I snooze through Boxing Day as my post Christmas recovery day!

Then our Summer at the Mornington Peninsula started. Andrew and I have spent many Summers on the Mornington Peninsula and always loved them. To be honest, we both love the Mornington Peninsula all year round. I love it over Christmas and January as well - to me, all the extra holidayers are just a happy addition even if it means going to the supermarket early. 

Melbourne Spring and early Summer had been incredibly bad weather - cool and lots of rain. Around Christmas, though, the weather switch flicked and we were treated to sunny, warm days.

I finished 2022 full of excitement with a full year of not working ahead (if that's what I want) and quite a few trips planned around Australia and overseas.

The morning of 1 January 2023 found Andrew and I at a cafe near a major supermarket with our two fur babies, Albus and Harry. They're in the photo at the top of this post - Albus on the left and Harry on the right. Andrew tied the dogs to chairs but, long story short, Harry managed to escape! He bolted down the highway and disappeared...for three days!!!! A little post I made on a local facebook page mushroomed into a social media storm where I was featured on morning radio and the local paper. The community engagement and positivity was amazing - an absolute avalanche of likes and shares. Without that community engagement, I have no doubt that we would have been separated from Harry for a lot longer than 3 days. We may never even have found Harry and we may never have known what happened to him.

I don't want to catastrophise - Harry is just a dog. But he is our dog; part of our family. Losing him at 1 year old was incredibly upsetting. I could go on and on about how we were all feeling for the 3 days Harry was lost and what we did to find him but, to try and encapsulate it in a few words, we felt hopeless and sad.

Finding Harry after 3 days felt like a miracle. To me, it was also a terrific reminder to appreciate what I have. Losing Harry was a great reminder to me that life can change in an instant so enjoy what you have Leonie!! Oh, and buy a GPS tracker for the dogs!! The GPS tracker is bought and on the dogs' collars. Appreciating what I have is a daily work in progress.




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