Oh My Dog

04/09/2026

The Chronic Optimist’s Guide to Getting it Wrong

The Chronic Optimist's Guide to Getting It Wrong I. In Which Our Heroine Believes in Fate, Repeatedly, Against All Available Evidence Freya Whitlock had always considered herself, with the sort of quiet, stubborn certainty other people reserve for religion, a romantic. Not in the soft, Sunday-afternoon-film sense of the word, either — not the sort of romantic who simply enjoyed the…...

The Chronic Optimist’s Guide to Getting It Wrong I. In Which Our Heroine Believes in Fate, Repeatedly, Against All Available Evidence Freya Whitlock had always considered herself, with the so…

04/09/2026

The Hopeless Romantic

She had a habit of falling in love with the wrong people as if it were a hobby, a pastime she practised with the same earnestness she once reserved for collecting vintage postcards and writing hopelessly romantic notes in the margins of library books. Eloise Marchant was, by every measure she could find in glossy magazines and old films, a hopeless romantic....

04/09/2026

The Thing on the Top Shelf

The Thing on the Top Shelf I. A Deal Struck at the Breakfast Table Charlotte Weller had, by her own private reckoning, exactly four ounces of patience left, and it was not yet nine o'clock in the morning. The past fortnight had worn her down in the particular, grinding way that only a small child in open revolt can manage. Claude — five years old, ordinarily the sweetest, softest-hearted boy anyone could hope to raise — had become, almost overnight, a stranger in miniature: shrieking over nothing, hurling perfectly good toast across the kitchen, refusing shoes, refusing baths, refusing sleep, and insisting, with maddening consistency, that none of it was actually his fault....

04/09/2026

You Rotten Apple of my Eye

You Rotten Apple of My Eye When I pluck you from the orchard of despair, your flesh succumbs to my greedy lips, the slow wriggle of maggots singing hymns of our union. My heart, a bruised peach, leaks syrupy devotion, while petals of decayed rose cling to your collarbone. I swallow your sighs like candied worms, each squirm a promise of forever in crimson residue....

03/09/2026

The Maze

The Maze She had laughed at the map, confident as any tourist, and stepped beneath the clipped yew hedges that rose like green walls around the mouth of the maze. The royal park spread beyond in acres of velvet lawn and ancient trees; the labyrinth itself, modelled on the famous Hampton Court Maze, promised a playful challenge and a slice of history....

The Maze She had laughed at the map, confident as any tourist, and stepped beneath the clipped yew hedges that rose like green walls around the mouth of the maze. The royal park spread beyond in ac…

02/09/2026

100 miles Dog Walking Challenge

Hi everyone, Subject: Help Me (and My Four Little Divas) Walk 100 Miles for MND & Hearing Dogs for Deaf People — With Sass and Snacks Good news — I’m back with my doggies for the October 100-mile dog-walking challenge for the MND Association and the Hearing Dogs for Deaf People Organisation, and yes, the chaos returns. I did this in May 2026 for the Breast Cancer charity and had an absolute blast despite Fibromyalgia and other health niggles....

02/09/2026

Wishes

Wishes “I wish it was me,” I whisper to the glass, as if the mirror might answer and the world would pass its burdens into my hands — a neat, miraculous swap: my small life for a map where every sorrow stops. I wish to wake with pockets heavy as a king’s, to scatter coins like confetti, to mend broken things; to buy back roofs from rain, to buy bread for every mouth, to turn the tide of hunger north, south, east and west — no drought....

Wishes “I wish it was me,” I whisper to the glass, as if the mirror might answer and the world would pass its burdens into my hands — a neat, miraculous swap: my small life for a map where every so…

02/09/2026

Cruel to be Kind

Cruel to be Kind She used to hand out kindness like loose change — a smile for the barista who remembered her order, a casserole for the neighbour who’d had a rough week, an extra ticket for a friend who’d said they’d come but never did. It felt natural, like breathing. Then the betrayals began, small at first: a borrowed dress that never returned, a compliment turned into gossip, a confidence traded for a joke....

01/09/2026

1st September 2026

1 September 2026 Well, would you look at that — we’ve already sailed past the halfway mark of 2026 and autumn is knocking at the door. It’s been raining non-stop and, despite the thermometer stubbornly sitting above 15°C (typical English “warm” weather), I’m seriously debating whether to switch the heating on. Do I give in to cosy radiators or cling to the last vestiges of summer?...

1 September 2026 Well, would you look at that — we’ve already sailed past the halfway mark of 2026 and autumn is knocking at the door. It’s been raining non-stop and, despite the thermometer stubbo…

01/09/2026

Who’s the Fairest Beast of All?

Who's the Fairest Beast of All I. The Peacock and the Meerkat It was a Saturday, which every animal at Bramwell Park Zoo knew meant one thing: the humans arrived in their thickest, most irritating numbers, wielding ice creams, buggies, and phones held aloft like offerings to a god who had, quite frankly, stopped listening some time ago. Reginald the peacock had already fanned his tail four times that morning — twice for genuine admirers, once for a toddler who promptly burst into tears, and once, rather pointlessly, for a pigeon who'd wandered in through a gap in the fence and had the audacity not to look impressed....

Who’s the Fairest Beast of All I. The Peacock and the Meerkat It was a Saturday, which every animal at Bramwell Park Zoo knew meant one thing: the humans arrived in their thickest, most irrit…