ā¦ And Johnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn has gonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnne
Now if something could only be done about @veroās bloody ear wormā¦
You are not advised to follow this link:-
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Yes there is a thriving industry of qualified sports massage, wellness massage and other more esoteric types (some a bit barmyā¦). Charge about ā¬30-ā¬50 and I think they are a truly wonderful treat. I am hugely careful as all my joints are fragile so make sure the person has proper qualifications and experience. This is all outside the medical system although many are cross trained and are kinĆ©s and osteopaths as well. There is an Ć©tiopathe in the town we have moved to that I am thinking of trying one day as well. But I never let anyone mess around with my neck.
You could just ask her?
Vero went out for a walk, and came back.
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Yes, and thanks to @JaneJones as well, but I suppose I would hesitate for fear of being misunderstood. 
@DrMarkH thank you too for that rousing shanty, havenāt heard it for many a long year. Funny though, the optional subtitles seem unable to recognise the word Ushant, the old name in the shipping forecast for what is now Fitzroy I think. 
As an aside from all that, a sign that my brain really is diminishing, it took me 10 minutes to bring back the word āsubtitleā from the depths, and I only got it in the end by going to the other room and looking at the buttons on the remote control. 
And English is supposedly my first language, no wonder I am losing my French then.
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Today I become a permanent resident of France, under EU freedom of movement regulations. Having been here exactly 5 years and 1 day, I can now apply for a fairly niche carte de sĆ©jour, snappily titled āCarte de sĆ©jour permanent ā membre de la famille UE ā Art 20 Dir 2004/38/CEā. Nice proactive texts and emails arrived from the Interior Ministry telling me I was now able to apply, and even the ANEF technology worked fairly smoothly - by local standards! Given recent political trends in France, it is reassuring to me that my immigration status is governed by EU laws (unchanged since 2004) , and not French domestic ones. One legal nicety is that future renewals are dealt with in my own right, no longer conditional on being āspouse of an EU citizenā.
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This is great news for you.
Iām a US/IT dual, and feel very comfortable that I could easily continue to meet the conditional FOM requirements, but even I am considering applying for permanent EU residency when I reach the 5 year mark. Iām really not sure what it would buy me- maybe I just miss having to deal with the beauracracy.
This was almost going in the bad threadā¦but it had a happy ending .
I lost my cat for most of yesterday and until early this morning. Sheās out for hours every day but always comes back before dark. Yesterday she didnāt come back. I left the back door open and slept on the couchā¦ waiting. I took a long walk around the block last evening looking for her. This morningā¦still didnāt show up. I drove around right after daybreak. Nothing. I reported her missing on I cad. I was about to post some lost cat photos, but then I sat down on the chair on my deck and just decided to open the door of the dependenceā¦and there she was. I remember going in there in the middle of the day and she must have snuck in because I didnāt notice. What really gets me is that she has an RF tracker, but I decided not to put a collar on her because of the heat. Silly me. She never made a peep while she was in there.
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I had a male siamese who used to go off for days at a time, really used to upset us and as he was castrated we believed the story that toms never stray far. Eventually the first time he went for three days, I found him in a hedge at the bottom of the field that surrounded our house, he had built a nest and was quite happy and he must have heard us calling but he followed me home. The next time he got into a garage at the entrance to our drive that was never used, the old lady who lived next to it had put chicken wire across the only window and the silly devil had got in by pushing that down but could not get back out again. I only found him there because I heard him mewing for us and we took out the wire and he got back out. They really do know how to upset owners when they disappear donāt they! All the other cats were greedy devils and never went far as they knew when it was grub up time;
My EU citizen wife obviously also becomes a permanent resident today, She has zero interest in acquiring the appropriate CdS. I think her view is that her rights are guaranteed by the EU. In the (hopefully extremely) unlikely event of her ever facing expulsion by a future French government, she could evidence her FoM permanent residence rights. As you know those EU rules make it incredibly hard to expel somebody with her status from the EU state - France - sheās living in.
By the way thank you for all your help in steering me to fantastic technical guidance on the EU CdS a while back, extremely helpful.
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Yes. All day I felt guilty. Was she jealous because I fed that neighborhood grey cat that she hates and he was hanging around? Was it the new kibble I bought that she didnāt like? Nopeā¦she just got stuck in the shed and didnāt cry. She can make a lot of noise when she has to but this didnāt qualify.
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Congratulations @George1 !
I am trying to wrack my brain as to what having permanent residence rights would get me. My income is guaranteed, health insurance (PUMa) very most likely is also (but if somehow they tossed foreigners off it, I could buy it). The only (also unlikely) scenario might be if Italy exited EU. Do you suppose having permanent rights would overcome Italyās exit? (What happened to Brits who had permanent rights before Brexit?) I suppose if that happened there wouldnāt be much of an EU left anyway, but thinking theory here, just for giggles.
I am not sure we had anything permanent related, it was just assumed we had by reason of the free movement of labour, which is how I came to be here almost 27 years ago and got a job straight a way.
So if there was an Itexit I assume it would be along the lines of Brexit, that is, already here and established, OK, but coming after, much bureaucracy in the way.
The EU FoM regs only apply to EU citizens/their families moving to another EU country. Therefore if your country (eg Italy in your example) leaves the EU, logically the FoM regs no longer apply to you living elsewhere in the EU, as you cease to be an EU citizen, nor do they apply going forwards to any EU citizens/families living in (Italy). Which I think is why the EU/UK more or less had to do a political deal (ie the Brexit Agreement). This had to safeguard - amongst many other issues - the rights of long term EU residents in the UK (settled status etc), and Brit long term residents in the EU (WARP cards/Article 50 etc).
I found out something that has given my ego a nice boostā¦. One of my nieces, who friended me on FB years ago but from whom I rarely hear, has been reading my posts, and has been influenced by some of them. Soā¦. I am an influencer 
All those eco-, pro-environment, pro-music, poetry, woke, philosophic posts have actually been read! My sister confirmed this. The two of them read my posts! And bought a book written by a fellow about whom Iād posted. In fact, they decided to buy a copy for me which I just received in the mail. So now we all three have it.
These days I can more than ever use all the positives possible. I am as always, grateful. Feeling a bit loved 
Cheers
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if itās anything like it was for us pre-Brexit then Iām guessing even if she tried to apply for a CDS from France the application wouldnāt be done.
We asked about applying for French CDS many years pre-Brexit and were told application not necessary and wouldnāt be processed as Europe gave us rights already. it was in a tone of āyou donāt need it and officials have better things to do than process such an application when itās not needed".
Are you going out to dinner to celebrate?
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No, instead weāre taking our dogs to the vets for their annual vaccinations..
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This was widely discussed in the pre Brexit years because some people for work or whatever did need a CdS and were being refused it by their Mairies, who I think handled such things at the time, or maybe sub-prefectures, and the advice was that they had to insist because it was a right to have one. I certainly got one in 1999 because it was needed to be a lorry driver as was the need to change an HGV licence immediately.
Not all officials agreed though and I remember meeting a Portuguese driver who had been in Bordeaux for decades still with his Portuguese licence. This astounded the instructor at the 3 day FIMO(?) class I went to for senior drivers of more than 10 years experience (drivers with less had to do a much longer one) but he shrugged and went on to inspect the others. Incidentally, the first half hour of every day was deciding amongst us all which routier we would go to for lunch that day. I thought that was wonderfully French. We had one day 3 up with instructor (2 sitting on the bunk) driving all around the area and much time doing little driving related quizzes and was delighted that my newbie answers were copied by the older Frenchman sitting beside me. Obviously we both passed with flying colours. 
We had them pre-Brexit without problem. And made the transition to a permanent WARP card extremely easy; essentially just showed the CDS, signed a form and got a WARP.