I have started writing this so many times in my head.
Usually at three o'clock in the morning, when the rest of the house is quiet and my brain has apparently decided that sleep is terribly overrated and what I really need is several hours to contemplate absolutely everything that is wrong with my life, Britain and the entire bloody world.
And every time, I come back to the same question.
How is it only September?
Seriously, 2026.
Could you please just stop now?
I think we've had enough.
Actually, I know we've had enough.
This year seems to have arrived carrying a sledgehammer and, every time we manage to stand ourselves back up, it takes another swing.
Some years quietly become memories.
Others leave scars.
I already know which kind 2026 is going to be.

The Empty Chair.
This year we lost the pillar of our family.
My father in law.
There are some people whose presence is so woven into the fabric of a family that you don't truly understand how many threads they were holding together until suddenly they aren't there anymore.
And then you notice the space.
The empty chair.
The missing voice.
The moments when something happens and, for one tiny fraction of a second, your mind forgets.
You think of telling them.
You expect them to be there.
And then reality arrives all over again.
Grief is cruel like that.
It doesn't always announce itself.
Sometimes it crashes through the door.
Other times it quietly sits beside you.
A photograph.
A song.
A family gathering.
Someone saying their name.
Something ridiculously ordinary that suddenly hurts far more than it has any right to.
When somebody has been a pillar of a family, you don't simply lose a person.
The whole shape of the family changes around the space they have left behind.
We carry on because that is what people do.
We laugh.
We make dinner.
We play with the dogs.
We answer messages.
We talk about ordinary things.
From the outside, life continues.
But there is always somebody missing from the heart.
And there always will be.

A Body That Won't Let Me Forget.
Then there is my health.
Another year of pain.
Another year of appointments, questions, symptoms and wondering what my own body might decide to throw at me next.
Living with pain every day does something to you that is difficult to explain to somebody who doesn't.
It isn't simply the pain itself.
It is the exhaustion of pain.
The negotiation that happens before the simplest things.
Can I do this today?
If I do this, what will it cost me tomorrow?
How far can I walk?
How long can I stand?
Will today be a better day?
Will tonight be worse?
You become extraordinarily good at pretending.
You smile while something hurts.
You say you're fine because explaining the whole story feels more exhausting than the pain itself.
You adapt.
You compromise.
You learn how to live inside a body that sometimes feels as though it has forgotten it belongs to you.
And you keep going.
Not heroically.
Not inspirationally.
You simply keep going because life doesn't stop and ask whether you're well enough to participate.
The washing still needs doing.
The dogs still need attention.
People you love still need you.
Life continues.
So you continue with it.

When Life Changes the Story.
This year has also taught me how powerless we sometimes are against the things life places in front of us.
There are moments when you would give anything to change what is happening. To turn back time, rewrite a chapter, take away somebody else's sadness or somehow make everything right again.
But life doesn't always give us that choice.
Some things cannot be fixed with the right words or made better simply because we desperately want them to be.
Sometimes all we can do is accept that life has taken a different path from the one we imagined.
And that is a kind of grief in itself.
We don't only grieve people. Sometimes we grieve moments, possibilities, plans and versions of the future that once felt so certain we could almost reach out and touch them.
Then, without warning, the picture changes.
The tomorrow we had imagined quietly disappears and we have to learn how to imagine a different one.
I think that has been one of the hardest lessons this year has given me.
That loving deeply doesn't give us the power to protect ourselves, or the people we love, from everything.
Sometimes there is nothing to do except keep loving, keep hoping and trust that somewhere beyond the chapter we are living now, there are still beautiful pages waiting to be written.

And Then There Is The World Outside Our Door.
Perhaps everything would feel easier if the world outside felt steady.
But it doesn't.
It feels as though everywhere we look there is another reason to worry.
Another war.
Another threat.
Another furious argument.
Another breaking news banner.
Another politician telling us one thing while somebody else insists the exact opposite is true.
Russia.
Ukraine.
Europe.
NATO.
Missiles.
Drones.
Cyber attacks.
Sabotage.
Words that once belonged to history books and documentaries now appear on our television screens with frightening regularity.
The British Government itself has warned that the security environment around us has become more dangerous and that Russian activity against European countries includes cyber attacks, sabotage and information warfare.
That frightens me.
I don't want another generation of mothers wondering whether their children will be called upon to fight.
I don't want to contemplate another European war growing beyond the borders where it is already destroying lives.
I don't want to wonder what the next escalation might mean.
And yet here we are.
Wondering.

And What Is Happening To Britain?
Then I look closer to home.
At Britain.
My home.
And sometimes I hardly recognise the atmosphere of the country anymore.
People are angry.
People are frightened.
People feel unheard.
Others are frightened by where that anger might lead.
Conversations become accusations.
Neighbours who probably agree about far more than they disagree about are divided into camps and told that the person on the other side is the enemy.
I hear people talking about being frightened to walk home alone.
Parents worrying about letting their children go out.
Women changing their routes home.
Families worrying about crime.
Communities worrying about immigration.
Other families worrying that they will be blamed simply because of where they came from or what they look like.
And Nobody seems to be listening.
I don't think pretending those fears don't exist makes them disappear.
But neither do I think fear should be allowed to turn ordinary people against one another.
Britain desperately needs honest conversations.
Not slogans.
Not name calling.
Not automatically branding somebody hateful because they ask a difficult question.
And not blaming an entire group of human beings for the actions of individuals.
We need to be able to talk about immigration.
Crime.
Integration.
Housing.
Public services.
Borders.
Women's safety.
Community cohesion.
And what kind of country we want to leave our children.
We need to be able to disagree without despising one another.
Because what frightens me almost as much as the problems themselves is the growing feeling that we have forgotten how to do that.
I see people talking about civil war.
I see others dismissing the very idea as ridiculous.
I don't know what Britain's future holds.
None of us does.
But I do know that I don't want to see this country become so divided that anger becomes hatred and hatred becomes violence.
That isn't a future I want for anybody's children especially my own.

What The Hell Are We Supposed To Believe?
Perhaps one of the strangest things about living through this period of history is that we have access to more information than any generation before us.
And somehow I feel less certain about what is true.
A video appears online.
Is it real?
A photograph goes viral.
Was it actually taken where the caption claims?
A politician supposedly said something outrageous.
Did they?
Was the clip edited?
Was something removed from the beginning?
What happened immediately afterwards?
Is that photograph genuine?
Is that voice even human?
Is the person I'm watching actually a person at all?
AI has become so good that sometimes our own eyes are no longer enough.
Meanwhile every news organisation chooses which stories to cover, which photograph to use, which sentence becomes the headline and which voices are invited to explain what happened.
Then social media takes that story, tears it into pieces and feeds each of us the version most likely to be true but both keep us staring at our screens.
One person sees one reality.
Their neighbour sees another.
And both are absolutely convinced that the other has been brainwashed.
How did we get here?
We used to say, “I'll believe it when I see it.”
Now we can see it and still have absolutely no idea whether to believe it.
Perhaps that is one of the most frightening changes of all.
Because when a society loses confidence in its ability to establish what is real, fear has fertile ground in which to grow.

I Am Tired Of Being Afraid.
Maybe that is what I am really trying to say.
I'm tired.
Not just sleepy tired.
Soul tired.
I'm tired of grief.
I'm tired of pain.
I'm tired of watching people I love hurt.
I'm tired of worrying about my family.
I'm tired of opening the news and wondering what fresh horror has happened while I was trying to sleep.
I'm tired of wondering whether something I am looking at is real.
I'm tired of politicians shouting at one another.
I'm tired of people being reduced to labels.
Left.
Right.
Immigrant.
British.
Rich.
Poor.
Woke.
Racist.
Fascist.
Traitor.
Snowflake.
As though any one word could possibly explain an entire human being.
I'm tired of ordinary people being encouraged to hate other ordinary people while the problems we are all arguing about remain stubbornly unsolved.
Mostly, I am tired of fear.
Fear of illness.
Fear of loss.
Fear for the people I love.
Fear of war.
Fear of what is happening to this country.
Fear of what sort of world our children and grandchildren are going to inherit.
It is exhausting.

But Still...
And yet.
Here I am.
Still writing.
Still loving.
Still researching people who lived hundreds of years ago.
Still laughing at my ridiculous dogs. 
Still crocheting.
Still finding beauty in old photographs, English gardens, family stories, sunsets, music and all those tiny moments that somehow survive even the worst years.
Perhaps that is the answer.
Not denial.
I don't want to pretend everything is wonderful when it isn't.
But I also don't want fear to steal whatever time I have been given.
Because amongst all the darkness of 2026, there have still been cups of cold coffee. 
There have still been hugs.
There has still been laughter that arrives unexpectedly and makes your stomach hurt.
There have been paws on laps.
Flowers opening.
Songs playing.
Family gathering.
Sunshine through windows.
Ordinary moments.
Tiny things.
The moments in between.
Maybe those are the things that save us.
Not because they make the terrible things disappear.
They don't.
But because they remind us what all the worrying is actually about.
We are frightened because we love.
We grieve because we love.
We worry about tomorrow because there are people we desperately want to see standing safely within it.
And hope isn't believing that everything will be okay.
Hope is knowing that everything might not be okay and choosing to love this life anyway.

So, 2026, I am asking nicely.
You have taken enough.
You have frightened us enough.
You have broken enough hearts.
There are still three months left, and frankly, I would appreciate it if you could just sit quietly in the corner and behave yourself.
No more plot twists.
No more character development.
No more bloody life lessons.
We've got enough of those now.
I don't know what tomorrow holds.
For my family.
For my health.
For Britain.
For the world.
None of us do.
But today, tomorrow and tomorrows tomorrow, I will hold the people I love a little closer.
I will appreciate the ordinary things a little more.
I will try not to allow tomorrow's fears to steal today's moments.
Because after everything this year has taught me, perhaps this is the lesson worth keeping.
Life can change between one heartbeat and the next.
So say the words.
Give the hug.
Forgive when you can.
Laugh whenever life gives you the opportunity.
Love people fiercely.
And when the world feels frighteningly dark, look for the smallest light you can find.
Then protect it.
Because sometimes a tiny light is all we have.
And sometimes...
it is enough.
Until next time, 
Toodle pip,
Yours, Lainey.

💔🇬🇧❤️