The Facebook Archives

Regular readers may wonder why I have such a comprehensive archive of my Facebook posts.

Here’s how it came about.

One of my university flatmates was physiology student Paula.  She had a wicked sense of humour and fierce intelligence (she took a law degree aged 50 and got a First) and we became firm friends.  Even though she settled in London and I settled ‘up North’ we kept in touch through birthday and Christmas cards and occasional letters.  When one of our other flatmates, Dr E, invited us to join in her Silver Wedding celebrations we actually got to meet in the flesh for the first time in decades.

Paula first had breast cancer in her thirties and survived, but as her first degree was in physiology she was aware that it might return.  It did, in 2011, and I promised myself I would write to her regularly.  She was too far away for meeting for coffee and I knew chemo etc. might mean she’d be feeling too ill to talk on the phone.  A letter could be read anytime, possibly even while undergoing treatment.  I never asked about treatment or how she was doing because a) I knew she’d tell me what she wanted me to know and b) she knew I cared.  I let her know I didn’t expect any replies, although she did text comments from time to time, and any letter or card from her was a delight.  As she wasn’t on Facebook I took to copying and including posts into the letters, because she loved to hear the daft things my boys say and do (all 3).

I mentioned this to Bigsister who complained “I only follow your niece so I don’t get to see any of your posts either.”  As did Pearl who also isn’t on Facebook.  So I attached edited letters as a document to an email, and a couple of more people got added to the list.  I ended up doing Chateau Midden Monthlies with more friends and family gradually added to the list (mostly by request).

Then Facebook started doing their “Memories” and I started compiling and adding them to Paula’s letters because I knew some of them would make her smile.

We lost Paula in March 2019, but the Chateau Midden Monthlies continued.

Until Ferretfingers broke his ankle and this present unpleasantness fell upon us.

I used Tales of Chateau Midden to get news of his progress to friends and families by sending them a link to the blog.  

It also helped to have somewhere to vent my feelings about the situation.

Then someone made the mistake of commenting on how much they looked forward to reading the blog.   

Knowing how hard it is to feel alone I promised myself I would try and blog daily to keep all our chins up going through this.   

But what to write about when Ferretfingers was back on his feet and we were going nowhere?

And there is was …

Almost all my Facebook posts since 21 March 2009 in Word documents to skim through each evening.

Some days there’s nothing.

Others I’m spoiled for choice.

I hope you’re enjoying them.