Post no. 100 today so time for a party! It’s certainly time to celebrate as on Monday I got an award. Vanessa Couchman, the writer and blogger, awarded me a Stylish Blog Award. I was so chuffed! Now Vanessa’s blog is extremely stylish – she’s an elegant writer and talented photographer – do check out ‘A Writer’s Life in France’ at http://vanessafrance.wordpress.com/. So it’s very flattering indeed that she likes my blog.

When you win the Stylish Blogger Award, you’re allowed to pass the award on to fifteen blogs that you like. I shall be doing that over the next few weeks as this is going to take some serious thought. I’m a serial blog follower and have lots of favourites to sift through. However, I can dish two out straight away without a moment’s hesitation.

One goes to David Keep’s Angling Lines blog at http://www.anglinglines.com/blog/. Angling Lines is a fishing holiday company. The blog has news about the various Angling Lines venues in France, competitions, fishing tips, plenty of fishy information and tips (did you know the phases of the moon can affect carp fishing, for example?), videos and general discussions. If you like fishing, you’ll like this blog.

Next up, Gerry Patterson at http://gerrypatt.wordpress.com/. His blog is entitled Mr Patterson Goes to Languedoc and has the subtitle A man in tight shorts discovers le sud. How can you resist finding out more about that? The tight shorts are because Gerry is a keen amateur cyclist. I love his blog. I’m a cyclist too, but my own tight shorts don’t get anything like as much wear as his do as he racks up zillions of kilometres. He takes part for fun in cycling races that would kill most people. He’s tough. Smashing photos, interesting anecdotes and cycling info make this a top notch blog.

As well as passing on the award, winners are meant to reveal seven things about themselves that they haven’t already mentioned in their blog. So here goes:

1.       I swam competitively till I was 37 and broke my nose twice during races – OK, to be accurate at the end of them when I didn’t deploy the brakes properly and swam into the wall. You’d think I’d have learnt after the first time, but no. The incidents were separated by more than 20 years, that’s my excuse. So my nose is bit bumpy but at least I won both times!

2.       I’m a worrier but also an optimist – I think that’s allowed.

3.       I got engaged to Chris just six weeks after first meeting him, but since our silver wedding anniversary is coming up this year, it was a gamble that paid off. But kids, if you read this, I will totally freak out if you do the same thing. Be warned.

4.       I love rock music. I’m thinking of having my MP3 surgically attached to my ears. My current favourite groups are Argyle, three super and very talented lads from Poitiers (watch them, they’ll go far – website http://www.myspace.com/argyle4), Linkin Park and Train.

5.       I don’t suffer fools gladly – actually at all.

6.       I was born to knit. I’m planning a yarn bombing campaign for Boussac. Don’t tell anyone.

7.       I could live on muesli –and chocolate. Possibly just chocolate.

So now you know!