I can’t believe that it is already a year since I started this blog. It has been a real voyage of discovery, since I barely knew what a blog was when I stumbled about trying to master WordPress. Nearly 100 posts later, I am slightly more competent but my enthusiasm for portraying the pleasures and eccentricities of life in France has not diminished.

By sheer coincidence, my blog received a lovely birthday present. This is what I mysteriously referred to in my post last Friday. Novelist Deborah Lawrenson very kindly awarded it a ‘Stylish Blog Award’. This award is passed on among the blogging community. If you receive it, you are supposed to award it to 15 other bloggers and reveal seven unknown facts about yourself. I’m sure none of this is obligatory, but it is rather a nice way of introducing people to blogs they haven’t yet come across.

As for my chosen 15, this is going to call for some serious deliberation. I should have liked to choose Deborah’s blog if she hadn’t already received the award. Maybe, like Oscars, you can be awarded it more than once. Deborah has a house in the Lubéron and her blog is full of the sunshine, colours and scents of Provence.

To start with, while I am contemplating the others, I’m going to nominate three blogs that give me particular pleasure:

Derekthered’s Corsica blog: Derek writes wittily and evocatively about Corsica, where he has a holiday home. I am a great fan of Corsica and have learned a huge amount about its customs and culture from reading Derek’s blog.

Life, love and llamas in Limousin: Stephanie writes amusingly and informatively about life with her family and a lot of animals, including llamas, in Creuse. Like me, she is interested in old French customs and sayings. She is also a very successful writer of children’s books, but she kept very quiet about that until recently.

The Tramizal Diary: Catherine describes herself as a painter, teacher and writer. A refugee from New York, she now lives in a small village in the Lot and adorns her blog with her own drawing and paintings.

For the seven unknown facts, I am certainly not going to reveal anything compromising about myself. Instead, I will tell you about my seven favourite French things:

1.     City: Cahors.

2.     Wine: Gevrey Chambertin.

3.     Dish: moules marinières.

4.     Cheese: Laguiole.

5.     Restaurant: L’Auberge de la Grange du Cros, at Saillac in the Lot.

6.     Film: Jean de Florette and Manon des Source (two films, but effectively one story).

7.     Novel: difficult this, but probably Emile Zola’s L’assommoir.

I notice that more than half of the above are connected with food and wine, but I suppose that’s not surprising since we’re talking about France.

Finally, as a little treat for my readers, here is a portrait of the Statistics Freak and me. He has been pestering me for weeks to include this. Since we might not have any more snow (fingers crossed), I’ll take the opportunity to post it here.

I am also working on a book of the most popular posts from my blog. Since this requires mastering the art of self-publishing, it might take some time. When it’s finished, it will be available as a free download. Watch this space. 

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