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Night Night Tinks

~ ChanAtkins ~ 5 Comments

You were the best girl ever…

Tinks just before the end – image is mine

Of course, we knew it was coming. Of course we had seen her slow down. As she turned 14 in February, I celebrated the fact she was the oldest dog I’d ever had! My last two died at aged 10 due to heart failure, and aged 13 after a stroke. But at 14, she was still going, still clicking about on her increasingly weak and wobbly legs, still emitting her strange high-pitched woof every time she wanted something, still causing no trouble, still being the sweetest, gentlest girl ever…

In April I celebrated again. Fourteen years had passed since I agreed to squeeze in an extra foster dog, and had this tiny mucky little scrap of a thing handed over the garden gate to me. Already named Tinkerbelle, I stuck her in the sink for her first bath. She settled in like she owned the place; always calm, sweet, and optimistic, even as a tiny pup.

No one phoned up for her, there was no interest in this smooth coated brindle lurcher pup at all and then one day she managed to climb up onto the kitchen side to try and reach some food. She fell off and broke her back leg. This, of course, meant an extended foster stay with us, during which numerous other rescue dogs came and went to their new homes. On the day someone finally phoned up to ask about her, I knew I could not let her go. She was ours. She had been with us for too long and there was no way we could give her up now.

Tinks as a puppy with her broken leg in a cast – image is mine

Tinks was the perfect puppy. While still in a cast, she slept every night in a crate to keep her as still as possible and she never complained. Once her cast came off, she could start going for walks but was still happy to sleep downstairs every night. She rarely peed in the house, rarely nipped anyone as a small pup, and although not particularly interested in training or tricks, Tinkerbelle always had reliable recall and always greeted other dogs politely and sensibly. And as the months wore on, her smooth brindle coat grew long and fluffy!

Tinks – first walk without her cast on! Image is mine

We were so, so lucky.

As the years went by, Tinks only got easier. I have never had such an easy dog. She was vocal when she wanted to be, but only ever out of excitement. She never jumped up at anyone, never stole food, never destroyed anything. She was so happy-go-lucky, so laidback. I always said it was like she lived in her own little world, and she did. A sweet, gentle happy little Tinks world.

Tinks as a puppy – image is mine

At the start of 2020, before the pandemic, we said goodbye to Skipper, another lurcher. He was ten and had suffered with heart failure for the last year of his life. He was a great companion for Tinks – they truly loved eachother and when he was put to sleep at home, she was there too. As I leaned over him, sobbing, she came over, pushed her head up under my arm and forced me to look at her. It was as if she was trying to say, hey, I’m still here!

Not long after Skipper left us, we got Jesse, who is now 5. He gave Tinks a new lease of life, as did Ada when she came along almost three years ago.

me and Tinks – image is mine

It’s really been the last year or so that Tinks started to slow down. Her back legs in particular were getting shakier and weaker, and she had trouble going up and down stairs. She stopped coming out for so many walks and was mostly happy pottering around the garden.

We knew the end was coming and I wanted the end that Skipper had. He was always afraid of the vets and became stressed getting into cars, so we had the vets come out to us. That way he could slip away in the comfort of his own home.

The Sunday before last, Tinks was fine one moment and then I noticed she was panting heavily. It was 6pm and we were watching TV together. She then got up and staggered about on her bed, so I went over to her, as something did not seem right. As I reached her, her legs gave way under her and she collapsed mostly into my arms, but hit her head on the floor. As she went down, her mouth stretched open and she cried out in pain. I thought I was losing her there and then.

We got her comfortable and all gathered around her, crying. She couldn’t seem to move her legs so we gently moved them for her so she was lying on her side. About an hour later she had another similar episode. She got up, staggered about, fell onto my lap and cried out. This time it was worse and she cried and grunted several times and again, I was certain she was going.

She settled down again and I called the emergency vets as I did not want her to suffer. They couldn’t send anyone out at that time but could see her if we drove her in. That would have been difficult, as she was a big dog who couldn’t move by herself at this point. We discussed it but by 9pm she seemed okay again. She had some water and even a few treats. We decided to leave her for the night and see how things were in the morning.

I slept downstairs with her that night. She slept peacefully through and in the morning surprised us all by going outside for a wee! She didn’t want any food though. Meanwhile, I made the appointment for the vets to come out on the Wednesday, as it was clear we couldn’t let this go on much longer. It gave us a few more days with her and I was thankful for that, but also anxious in case she had another episode. I just didn’t want her to suffer at all.

Thankfully she made it to Wednesday. She did not eat any dog food, just the odd treat and a tiny bit of cake I shared with her. She drank water but was otherwise uninterested in food. She slept peacefully most of the time and we all tried to spend as much time with her as we could.

Wednesday arrived. My busiest work day, but to be honest, I was glad of the distraction. I ran a few Zoom clubs in the morning then the vets arrived at 12.30pm. It was all over very quickly and very peacefully. She was so tired, so weak, so ready to go. My teenage son was here and he was wonderful. We buried her in the garden next to Skipper on the other side of the cherry tree.

Mostly, I feel relief. Life was getting harder for her, and I really wanted to avoid a stressful or painful death. She deserved the best end and I think that’s what she got. No more suffering, no more pain, no more feeling tired or weak.

And now, we miss her.

We realise how special she was, how sweet she was, how easy she was. She never demanded anything of anyone, that’s the thing I keep coming back to. She was the least demanding dog I’ve ever had. The simplest. The gentlest. The easiest.

Fourteen years is a long time for a dog to be part of your life and your family. Though we have the younger two to keep us busy, there is a Tink shaped hole in everything now.

But what I keep coming back to is how lucky we were to have her. From an extra foster dog I didn’t know I was getting, to the broken leg meaning her foster stay was prolonged, to having her as part of our lives for so very long, I feel lucky.

Night night sweet Tinks.

Thank you for being the best girl ever.

The Mess Of Us Is Out Today!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 3 Comments

My debut novel The Mess Of Me finally has a follow-up…

Twelve years after my debut YA novel The Mess Of Me was released, it finally has a follow up book, and it’s out today! Thank you so much to anyone who has preordered the ebook while it’s been discounted. Here is the universal book link for anyone interested. This will take enable you to buy from multiple platforms and in paperback. https://books2read.com/u/4NNka6

Last week I gave you a bit of insight into what inspired the sequel and why it took so long to get around to. I also gave a few extracts from both books where we see Lou analysing Leon. Leon is the main protagonist in the first book but has a redemption arc in the sequel. This then led to me writing another book where he appears again as a character, and this time we get his POV for the first time.

I thought today I’d run through a list of my connected books that exist in the same universe. If you have read any of these, for example, you might like to know where you can see those characters again. Also, the list of books finds everyone’s stories tying up nicely in the final book, The Dark Finds You which I aim to release towards the end of 2025.

So, here we go. This is the suggested reading order of the books in the universe and details about how they connect!

  • The Boy With The Thorn In His Side 5-book series – these books introduce us to the character of Danny, who grows up in the 90s in a seaside town called Redchurch. His violent stepfather, a local hard man and criminal, owns a nightclub in the town and later purchases one, Chaos, in nearby Belfield Park, another location in the series.
  • The Mess Of Me – set years after the events of The Boy series, Lou and Joe also live in Redchurch and Danny and co went to the same school as them back in the 90s. They mention Danny once or twice as a sort of local legend whose name is found scratched on a park bench.
  • Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature – set in Holds End, a fictional council estate which is located between Redchurch and Belfield Park, this is the story of 12 year-old Elliot Pie who attempts to befriend strangers in an attempt to convince his agoraphobic mother that the world is not all bad. He lives next door to a family called the Robinsons and mentions seeing the middle child, Bill, leaving his house with a guitar on his back.
  • The Holds End trilogy – also set in Holds End, this trilogy of books is made up of A Song For Bill Robinson, Emily’s Baby and The Search For Summer. There are several main characters but Bill Robinson who is sixteen in the first book, is the main protagonist. He’s a flawed and self-destructive singer who ends up trying to solve the murder of a local teenager. In the third book, The Search For Summer, Elliot Pie’s mother, Laura, appears briefly. Danny also appears briefly in the trilogy when Bill’s band play in his nightclub, Chaos and he becomes an early champion of their music.
  • At Night We Played In The Road – a spin-off from The Boy series, this is the story of brothers Alfie and Tom Lane, who appear in Part Five of The Boy With The Thorn In His Side, where they find themselves tangled up in drug-dealing and crime, with an adult Danny posed to help them. This is the story of how they got there and at the end of this book, Danny appears in the present day and is forced to save the brothers again by making a huge concession to one of his old enemies, Nick Groves, a man who served under his stepfather.
  • The Mess Of Us – set two years after the first, Lou and Joe are back and this time have an unplanned pregnancy to deal with on top of struggling to adjust to adulthood and come to terms with what Leon did two years earlier. Leon is now out of prison and wants to make amends. It is mentioned that he has returned to work as a drug-dealer for Nick Groves and co who own the nightclub in Redchurch that Danny’s stepfather once owned. Towards the end he tells his brother Joe that a band are holding drummer auditions at Chaos in Belfield Park. The band is Bill Robinson’s.
  • The Dark Finds You – coming next! This book picks up where The Mess Of Us ends… Leon is trying to make amends to Joe and trying to pay back the debt he owes Nick Groves and his violent crew. He works the Belfield Park area where he is ordered to hit Chaos, which is now Danny’s nightclub. Leon gives Joe a lift to the drummer auditions he mentioned in The Mess of Us and Joe joins Bill Robinson’s band. Meanwhile, things become awkward when Bill recognises Leon as one of his regular drug-dealers. Elliot’s mother Laura is having a baby with Bill’s dad, Andy, and the two dysfunctional but loving families have merged and all live in one house. Bill and Elliot are effectively step-brothers who have become very close, so Bill naturally wants to help when Elliot’s best friend Finn goes missing. Danny, who is friends with Bill due to the band playing at the club, finds himself drawn into the mystery, as does Leon, who is effectively working for both sides.

Phew! Well, hopefully that explains how they all tie in together and how the final book in the universe finishes everyone’s stories! I hope if you’ve read any of the above books you might now be tempted to try another!

See you next week!

Clinging To What’s Certain in Uncertain Times

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

Uncertainty is my biggest stress trigger. I can cope with anything if I am prepared. I’m quite good at slipping into survival mode. But not knowing what is going to happen, stresses me out. A good example is the outbreak of Covid 19. Those first few days as schools closed and lockdowns were imposed were terrifying for me because I just didn’t know what to expect. As soon as things became clearer, I calmed down. I rolled my sleeves up and got on with it just like everybody else.

Image by Kranich17 from Pixabay

Now, we face endless uncertainties. Food prices are rising, gas and fuel prices are soaring and during the last few weeks here in the UK it has been difficult to get petrol for our cars. I can cope with all of these things if there is some level of clarity. If the powers that be were able to say, for example, no petrol for three months! Food prices will get this high! This is how much your central heating will cost you! I wouldn’t be happy, obviously, but I would figure out a way through. It’s the not knowing that stresses me out, not knowing how long to expect disruption for, not knowing how high prices will go, not knowing if at one point we as a family will no longer be able to afford to drive.

I’d love to know! I’d love to know the answers to so many things because then I could plan, prepare and calm down. But I have to accept that uncertainty is about the only thing that is certain right now. Not only are we facing supply chain issues, driver shortages and labour shortages, we are also facing climate change and a world full of ‘leaders’ who refuse to acknowledge what needs to be done. We live in scary, uncertain times and I often wonder how any of us get up in the morning and get on with things.

The answer is that we have to. We are somewhat trapped. We have to go to work to pay the ever-rising bills, to put fuel in the car and so that we can pay our rent or mortgage. We have no choice but to carry on until we can’t.

I don’t want to live my one short life in an increasingly stressed and frightened manner, so I’ve been trying to get to grips with all this, for my own sake, and for my kids. I’ve been reminding myself that while so much is uncertain right now, there are plenty of things that are certain and can be relied on. And I need to cling to those.

So, for me, these things are certain, at least for now and I will be holding on to them as tightly as I can.

  • Love. The most obvious and sometimes the one most taken for granted. I love and I am loved. I am married to my best friend and somehow we always find a way to laugh at things. I have four beautiful, kind-hearted children. I have friends and relatives I can rely on. Love is certain.
  • Laughter. We laugh every day. I am lucky that my husband and all of my children have wonderful, wry, dark sense of humours. There is always something to laugh about and laughing is something we are pretty good at as a family. Laughter is certain.
  • Gardening. In times of stress and uncertainty I turn to my garden even more. When wildlife is threatened around me, I do all I can to encourage it to my little plot. I plant trees, shrubs, seeds and hedges. I do what I can because it makes me feel like I am doing something. Gardening is certain.
  • Writing. The same applies to writing, my one true addiction. I write about what scares me, I face my fears, I create characters to do and say what I can’t, I explore darker futures and every word that comes out of my head makes me feel better and calmer. I will always have writing. Writing is certain.
  • Hope. It’s hard to have, painful even, but we have no choice. We have children and children deserve hope. They deserve to get up in the morning believing that a better future awaits them. They deserve to hold onto that hope and let it guide them. I still have hope. You just have to.
  • The Small Things. I’ve always believed that it’s the small things that get us through. Flowers blooming in Spring, your favourite song turned up loud in the car, a perfect cup of tea, the smell of coffee and a freshly baked cake, a glass of wine on a Friday night, Saturday Night Movie Night and a bowl full of sweeties! Snuggling up under soft blankets on the sofa. Watching Taskmaster and laughing our heads off. Dogs welcoming you home like you’ve been gone forever. Birdsong in the morning. Cold Winter air through open windows as I hide under the duvet. A good book read in a warm bath. The Tawny owls calling at night. Coming home. All these things are certain. All these things are precious.

I hope things are not too uncertain or scary for you right now. It’s a tough world and getting tougher, but there is still plenty to smile about and be grateful for. As long as I have some certainty from the things I’ve mentioned, I know I can keep going.

What about you? What small things keep you going when times are tough?

The First To Fly The Nest

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

As I write this my oldest child, my firstborn, is in another country. We drove her there yesterday, left her there and drove back. I was so excited for her new start at Aberystwyth University in Wales, but it also felt so strange and wrong to be driving back home without her. Now I’m sat in the kitchen of my startlingly silent house. The other three children are all at school or college. I’m typing opposite the space my daughter has always occupied at the kitchen table and she is not there. She is not in her room either. She is not in the house. Not in the country.

Image by Lubos Houska from Pixabay

I was fine yesterday. I actually surprised myself. I was more worried that she would get an attack of nerves or anxiety, so I tried really hard to stay upbeat and I was genuinely so excited for her. I still am. My firstborn has flown the nest I went into overdrive preparing for her over nineteen years ago when she was still in my tummy. I remember those days. Nesting. Cleaning the flat we lived in, setting up her cot and her nappies and her toys. Feeling so excited while I awaited her arrival. Not knowing if she would be a girl or a boy. I feathered the nest and made a home.

And now she has flown. Which is exactly what she should do. And I am so excited for her as she starts this new, far more adult stage of life. I am so proud of her and I am confident that she is tough enough and capable enough to survive out there on her own.

She will no doubt fly back to the nest for Christmas and I will have to restrain myself from fawning all over her, crying and generally annoying her! That is something to look forward to. But for now, I sit here and all I can feel is loss. This is truly something they never prepare you for as a parent. You get all the advice and warnings about sleepless nights, endless nappies, teething pain, potty training, tantrums, childhood illnesses and more. You get an onslaught of smug grins and rolling eyes from those who have done it first. They make it sound like a nightmare, but it’s not. But no one ever tells you about this bit. The bit where you get left behind and they fly off to start their own life.

I was fine until I drove home from the school run this morning. I was listening to one of her Mother Mother CDs. She got me into the band and they are now my favourite. She’s kindly let me keep all the CDs here as she just uses Spotify these days. I shouldn’t have put the CD on, but I did it out of habit, and then suddenly out of nowhere I was in floods of tears. And it hasn’t really stopped yet. I know it sounds silly, and I blame my perimenopausal hormones for a lot of it. I am all over the place at the best of times!

But I suppose it just hit me. She’s gone. She’s not here. She’s a five hour car drive away. I was listening to the music she used to play endlessly in the kitchen, or in her room. I came home and opened the fridge and there was her soya milk. I looked at her bedroom door and realised I could not bear to go in it. I laughed as I cried for being so emotional but I think my husband was feeling it too. Yesterday we were too busy and too hectic to really feel it.

Now, we learn to adjust.

And I can’t help thinking about how fast it all went. How she was the best thing that ever happened to me. How she changed my life in more ways than she will ever know. How she stayed awake all night in the hospital after her birth…these big blue eyes staring at me so seriously, as if she was trying to work out who I was. I was so proud to carry her home. A trio of elderly ladies stopped us on the way out of the hospital so they could see the brand new baby. She was so tiny. We walked into our flat and into our new life as parents and she promptly threw up all down my back. I was so happy. So in love. So excited for the adventure ahead. She always seemed older and wiser than her age. Always. She was a good baby but she only liked me. As a toddler she would cling to me relentlessly and push my husband away. She hated being in the buggy and I’d usually give in and carry her instead. She cried if I walked out of the room. It was an amazing and humbling thing to be loved and needed that much and like I said, it was the best thing I ever did with my life.

She walked early, talked early, argued early! She was so independent by the time she was three. She never stopped asking questions, she never stopped talking. It was exhausting but so funny. She loved school and soaked up everything they taught her. I remember walking back home after dropping her at school and feeling like my heart had been ripped out, but I was so relieved I still had the other kids with me, and I feel a bit like that again now. I’m going to hug the hell out of them all when they get home later.

She was always so bright, so smart, a bookworm from the start. A writer, like me. A sweet natured and shy girl as she went through school and got older. We’ve never really clashed. We’re alike in some ways, very different in others. Like me, she enjoys her own company and knows her own mind. She has always had a fierce sense of injustice and morality. She loves books and TV and film and will talk about it endlessly.

I can still remember the moment, aged six, when she pulled her hand out of mine and ran ahead to catch up with some friends. I remember thinking oh, you don’t need me anymore. And it was true in some ways, but not in others. They never stop needing you really. You just have to wait in the background until they do.

I’m going to miss her so much. There is a hole in the house today, a hole in my heart. I know it will get easier but for now I am accepting that this is a mourning period. A big chunk of my life has just changed. I had a little baby girl, I fed her, clothed her, loved her, carried her, played with her, taught her everything I could, wiped her tears and picked her up when she fell. In a matter of moments that feel like dreams, she has grown up and all of that is now over. I just feel so, so lucky that we did it. That we had that life and that time and today my head is just crammed full of all the funny things she used to do and say when she was my little girl, my little friend, my sidekick, her hand in mine and all the world before us. I blinked and it was over. But I do remember every little thing.

And now I get to watch her fly.

And there is nothing wrong with the tears I’ll cry. They are tears of love and loss and pride of a job well done. She will always be my little girl. And I hope she knows how very, very proud of her I am and always will be.