Life can be difficult

I usually make an effort not to talk about unpleasant things – but sometimes life just doesn’t cooperate with me. There have been two things this this year that have knocked the wind out of me. The first was a problem with the Spanish tax office (via the French tax office).

It’s all resolved now, they’ve admitted it was a mistake and we don’t in fact owe 295,655.82€ in taxes, or even 2€ for that matter. But the stress of proving that and the threats of having one’s accounts and property embargoed was a killer. Our lawyer says we can sue Spanish Hacienda for the trouble they caused us, but I don’t think either one of us has the energy. I do want an apology, though. And I’ve made clear that if I don’t get one signed by all three people involved I may rethink my lack of energy.

Bessie has died. She was ancient, and had dementia, but she coped very well with all of that and had a perfectly pleasant life. She was at least 18 at this point, and had been having minor strokes, and then a big one. She was the black one.

She had serious issues. They couldn’t cope with her at the shelter where we got her. She was too thin, scared of other dogs and people. We tried to give her a decent life. That’s all we can do. All we can hope for as living beings; to give those around us the best possible time we can, for as long as we can. Bessie never got around to accepting overt touching. She would come and lay on us, but if we touched her she would go away. Anyway, we’re taking the grief and transforming it into something constructive. We spent the day at the shelter outside Mazamet today. We met Maya, who was a stray and has lived for years at the shelter. Just like Bessie, she’s terrified of people and we think we may be able to fix that for her, so we’ve started day visits and we bring her home next week.

This is Maya: