This afternoon I decided to pull out of Facebook? Why? Well I’m sure there are lots of answers… but mostly I was finding it all a bit of a pointless waste of time. Not alone there then. But the crazy thing is that out of the “friends” on my contacts list, only about 10% of them ever bothered to interact. Not that I am ungrateful to that 10% of course!
So for me it is a case of… Wanna stay in touch? Then you are more than welcome to send an email and TALK to me. Wanna be all voyeuristic and just look at my photos? Then fuck off.
Shortly before this decision I also brought to an end 10 years of my expat group “English Speakers in France”. We had some great times and meet ups, but in the end, like Facebook, I was spending too much time on it trying to keep it going. OK we had over 1,000 members on Facebook – but did that really do any good? No.
So I can sit here remembering the lovely people I’ve met out there during our occasional meals in Paris and those who, sadly, are no longer with us. Knowing that at least the project brought people together over the last decade makes me feel it was at least worthwhile.
So RIP English Speakers in France…
Today both Thumpah and me have been to the Doctors as we’re both down with the trachea equivalent of broncitis. Thumpah is getting over it, where as I’m still coughing well. We’ve both been in abdominal pain and having headaches from the fits of coughing – but it has also set my back pain off again. Dontcha just love this time of year?
More seriously… the question has come back to the surface about what we should do about Chipie, our dog. Earlier today we were even considering having her put down this evening… or at least as soon as possible. We’ve now decided to wait until the weekend.
Some of you may know that she had a stroke back in July, and has had a couple of small attacks since then. As a result, her hind quarters are very weak and she has a lot of difficulty getting up from a lying position. Occasionally she just cannot get up. When that happens Thumpah tries to help her, unfortunately Chipie tries to bite when she does that. Even if it does actually help her to get onto her feet. It gets even more interesting when Chipie needs to go to the toilet but can’t get up.
My usual ploy to help her up indoors is to put a doormat under her front paws as she tries to drag herself up, to give her some grip. But as her rear end is almost devoid of muscle she sometimes struggles even then.
The sad thing for us is that she is eating well, and doesn’t really appear to be suffering. True, she isn’t really “with us” like she used to be – and we are often worried when Rémy goes a bit to close to her.
Sooner or later it is going to happen, but we’d much sooner get it over with before she gets to the stage where we have to carry her outside to do her business or even worse… carry her to the vets to have her put to sleep. At the moment you’d only have to try and put your arms around her to lift her for her to turn on you!





