The king of hugs and one of my favorite fellow bloggers, Lord David Prosser, nominated me for this award. I have no award-free principles, so I am delighted to accept the honor.
As with many awards this one has a few “rules”. As a rule, I dislike rules and try to break them wherever possible. However, I also believe you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth (whatever that means!). So, here goes…
First, the rules:
- Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
- List the rules and display the award.
- Share seven facts about yourself.
- Nominate 15 other blogs you enjoy, then comment on their posts to let them know that you have nominated them.
Let me begin by thanking David, who keeps us all in merriment on Sunday mornings with his weekly epistles of daily life on The Barsetshire Diaries, along with those of a rather fishy cast of characters including his pal, Mike, and Big Al, the leader of the tank. (Apologies to Mike, I couldn’t resist!)
Now, 7 fascinating facts about moi:
1) Although I live in France, I hate to travel and never bothered to learn any foreign languages before meeting my husband. Who, you guessed it, is French!
2) I eat breakfast in bed. Every. Single. Day. (Except when we’re traveling, which is probably why I hate it!)
3) We have two grown children, who shall remain nameless on this blog, and two substitute children: our Frenchies, Higgins and Humphrey. Oh, and two vile lodgers who think they own the joint: the cats, Bianca and Leo.
4) I am a professional writer. Shh! Don’t tell my clients, they pay me to do what I do for free here.
5) In another life, I used to sing.
6) Unrelated fact: I am deaf in one ear.
7) I curse like a sailor and spit like a man. In two languages!
So, now to the real business. Here are 15 blogs that I follow with pleasure and can recommend you do the same.
A Crooked Mile: Another blogger who shares sometimes mixed feelings about France.
Au Pair Gal: I am very much enjoying this new blog chronicling life as an Au Pair.
As Told by Dana: Great stories from the trenches of life in France.
A Year in Perigord: A Francophile with a very British sense of humor.
Food, Photography and France: A food photographer who can make anything look magical.
Multifarious Meanderings: A funny take on just about anything.
Osyth: A funny and inspired writer who lives in the remote region of Cantal
Suzanne and Pierre in Paris: A bilingual photo blog documenting this couple’s travels (unfortunately ending soon!)
Forty c’est Fantastique: Souvenirs of past and future trips to France.
Long View Hill: One woman’s challenges in living a balanced life.
Big Body Beautiful: An inspirational blog about finding beauty in all body sizes.
Cogito Ergo Mom: Thoughts on parenting, emphasis on the thoughts.
Colin Bissett: Travel, architecture and more from an adopted Aussie.
The Cheergerm and the Silly Yak: I enjoy reading this blog almost as much as drooling over the gluten-free recipes!
Wandering Cows: Bits and bobs from the travels of wandering Aussies.
Happy reading and bonne semaine!
FranceSays 
Congrats to you, your blog posts are always interesting and inspiring. Love that you used to sing (so did I) and that you can curse like a sailor and spit like a man! Thanks so much for the shout out and nominating me for this lovely wee award. Like you, I am not great at following rules and am terribly behind on accepting one or two awards but I am working towards some sort of ‘acceptance post’. (Like an Oscars acceptance speech but much more um, awesome?) 😁
Merci Madame! And whatever works for you as far as the awards go…I think the whole thing is really about sharing the love, as they say… 🙂
Congrats indeed. I always look forward to your postings and your lovely sense of the absurdities of (French) life. Keeps me going when I think I’d much prefer to be living in France than Australia (oops, whisper it). And thank you for your honourable mention – I shall have to think about interesting facts for my acceptance. So glad you continue to sing through your blog!
I never thought of it that way, thanks so much! Hopefully I manage to stay in key despite some rather sharp notes!
Congratulations on the well-deserved awards which I always enjoy reading. Thanks for nominating our blog. We still haven’t decided what we will do with it when we moved back to Canada after spending 2 1/2 years living in Paris (and travelling all over!) in early Jan 2015. (Suzanne)
Looking forward to following your adventures back in the ‘Homeland’!
Well done and well deserved.
Thanks, Vanessa! Means a lot coming from a published writer with her own wonderful blog!
P.S. We also eat breakfast in bed. Every day!
Good to know that others also indulge… 😉
Magic Mel, I’m so glad you accepted and even kept to the rules which I didn’t. Nice nominations too. I’m off to look at them.
xxx Massive Hugs xxx
Thanks, David, for starting the process! May you discover something new to enjoy. Bises xxx
I’m most honoured (MM scarpers to find black sequined dress and practice emotional acceptance speech). You have my dream job. You lucky, lucky, lucky girl. And breakfast in bed EVERY DAY? Oh, boy. 😀
Don’t worry, there is a down side: some of the writing jobs are pretty dull; and I do have to change the sheets a lot!
Congratulations! Very well deserved! And thank you for the wonderful new blog recommendations — several of them I already follow (and love!) but I found some promising new ones on your list. 🙂
Merci! Glad to share the love!
Mahusive congratulations – I so much love your blog and you deserved to be awarded many times over. Of course, I am hugely flattered too that you picked little miss me, me, me amongst your 15 and being a shameless tart of the first order have no qualms whatsover about accepting. Before I do anything else though, I’m off to explore the wonderful others. Thank you and thank you and thank you. And most of all congratulations once again you little superstar 🙂
Thanks for your warm comments, Osyth! (And for the new word – mahusive…?) 😁 My pleasure to recommend your excellent writing, and hope it will lead to happy explorations for you and new followers for your blog.
Yup – mahusive … if you can’t think of a word make it up, that’s my philosophy 😀
Thank you for nominating me. To my amazement, this is the second award nomination I have received this week. I am delighted to accept both. I will respond to your nomination in the coming week, once I have worked out which 15 blogs I should nominate in turn. If you hadn’t already been nominated, I would have picked you. I love your posts – my frequent likes must have alerted you to that already, I guess. Thanks again. Graham
Merci, Graham. My pleasure as your daily posts are always entertaining. Jamais deux sans trois? 🙂
Wow, I am honored that you like my blog! (www.aupairgal.com) Thank you for the shout out 🙂 You are an excellent blogger yourself and I can’t wait to read more!
Thanks, and looking forward to following your adventures!