Amanda’s world

Our family blogger Amanda Blinkhorn lets us in on her life. This week it’s all doggone difficult…

It’s been almost a year since we lost Doughnut, our beloved retired racing greyhound, and the house – tiny though it is – still seems too big without him.

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The puppy campaign

Much as we miss him, I’m still not sure we are ready for a new dog, though the kids’ puppy campaign has meant that we’re constantly scouring the Retired Greyhound Trust, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, and The Mayhew Animal Home for a new member of the family. We’ve even installed a higher fence and a new gate, after we were inspected by houndsfirst.co.uk and found ourselves a fence post short of being a secure home for a potentially excitable and high-jumping Saluki.

The new arrival

While we adjust to the idea of becoming a ‘two-walks-a-day’ family again, we have found ourselves the perfect transition pet. Mitch the tabby arrived on Saturday – all the way from Tooting. He will be spending the next two months with us while his owner goes walkabout to conserve turtles in Asia. Forty-eight hours in, he has established himself as a true cat by installing himself with the one person who showed least interest in him. Katy feeds him, Jack cuddles him, I clean his litter tray – Cleo welcomed him with a smile and a shrug. Obviously, he’s been sleeping on her bed for two days straight.

Amanda Blinkhorn is a freelance journalist who has been writing about money, family life and everything in between since she was 19.

She blogs here almost every day and writes the Money Matters finance column in Candis magazine as well as for The Sunday Times and other newspapers and magazines. She lives in London with her four children aged between 8 and 19. She has almost finished training to be an adult literacy teacher and will qualify this summer, if she ever finishes those pesky essays.

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