Authors Electric

Last month I blogged about facing an ‘empty nest’, with both daughters now at university. But to be honest, it’s not empty at all. Not only is it occupied by myself and my partner, but there are also the pets, so it doesn’t seem particularly empty at any time, even if the elderly cat spends most of her time asleep, curled up near a radiator. Gunner, the dog, more than fills any space that’s left. We rehomed Gunner in February this year, our second adoption. It was a very deliberate decision each time to offer an older dog a new home, rather than opt for a puppy, but I’m not looking for any credit for it. I simply didn’t want to face all the time and effort needed to train a puppy – however cute – in all the basic necessities, like house-training. I am, it has to be said, rather a lazy dog owner. One can, of course, feel good about offering a dog a new home. There can be many reasons why a dog needs rehoming and the word ‘rescue’, while often used, in our cases certainly hasn’...

I’m sitting here today contemplating the desolation of an empty nest. That may be something of an exaggeration, if I’m being honest. For my elder sister, it perhaps isn’t: she’s been a parent for thirty years, and this summer saw the last of her three children leaving home (to move 500 miles away), along with both his wedding and that of his sister, only six weeks apart. Months of frenetic preparations, book-ended by major family celebrations (and with the arrival of a new grandchild to the third sibling in the midst of everything), and then she and her husband find themselves alone in the anti-climactic aftermath, in the now-too-big family home, waiting for the next time the loved-up newlyweds deign to think of calling in… In my case, it will only be a part-time empty nest, a transitional stage that hopefully will prepare me gradually for what is to come later – that time when it’s just me, my partner and the dog (and maybe still the elderly cat) in the house. Ev...