She's ten weeks old now, and growing fast. Just how big is this puppy going to get? We were hoping for her springer-spaniel mother's medium size, but it's starting to look like she may take after her labrador father instead. Tilly is finally sleeping through the night, so we're marginally less tired than we were a week ago...although now we're in the stage where if you take your eyes off her for a moment she's got something she shouldn't have in her mouth (stones, snails, kitchen towels, the latest Neil Gaiman novel).
Each morning Tilly and I have a quiet hour together while I sit in a garden chair in our front yard, coffee in one hand, pen & notebook in the other -- and she balances on my knees, taking in the mysterious sights, sounds, and smells of the new world around her. We've had visitations by many crows these last few days, and we've watched wild ponies trek down from the moor to graze in the grass and bracken of Meldon Hill. Soon it will grow too wet and cold to continue to sit out every morning; soon Tilly will grow too large to perch on my lap so comfortably; so I'm savoring our morning ritual while it lasts. As Mary Oliver says:
you must be able
to do three
things:
to love what is mortal;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
