All the stuff you never knew you needed to know about life in rural France.....and all the stuff the books and magazines won't tell you.

Tuesday 12 October 2010

Versatile Blogger award

Ayak, on Turkish Delight has kindly given me this Versatile Blogger Award.

I am most grateful to her, not just for the award, but for the confidence she has given me in wrestling with the way computers work...the help she has given me in solving earth shattering problems like how to copy and paste - don't laugh out there, that was the paste bottle and paper in my young day - and her readiness to offer a hand even when she is busy with her own life.

It's a great blog...too.....

The award comes with conditions...I have to tell you eight things about myself.

So....

I'm not quite as grouchy as I seem.....

But I do have a ferocious temper.

The savage breast is best soothed by five days of Test Match Special. But it will make do on a One Day International if it must.

I detest housework.

I usually have a book in my hand, or in my pocket, or on the table, or (shame on me) dropped in the bath...

I love Belgian food.

I would like to see Blair arraigned as a war criminal...and quite a few others as well.

I  love Mr.Fly 'a la folie.'


So there you have it.

I would like to pass on the award to:

the Diary of Amy Rigby, which has opened an entirely new world to me, with style and humour.

Grumpy Old Ken, without whose round up no month would be complete.

Delana at Du Jour, whose ability to rise above it all sometimes astounds me

Tales from Clippy Mat, whose accounts of encounters with wild life still give rise to wild mirth...

and nodamnblog whose blog I appreciate for its compassion for animals, its regular Wednesday word...and its subversive humour.

No obligation on the recipients to fulfill conditions...the award is just a small way of saying 'Thank you' for giving me so much pleasure.

28 comments:

  1. Given your eight confessions, I am guessing you are a Capricorn.
    I know how you feel about Blair, multiply that ten fold and you will get some sense of my anger at Bush, we are still paying for his moronic decisions, many with their lives.
    Moving on, Belgian food? If you ever visit NYC email me first, I know exactly where to take you.
    X David, NYC

    ReplyDelete
  2. Test match? Really?! I am genuinely surprised!

    ReplyDelete
  3. David McGrievy,

    Aries.

    The immunity from consequences enjoyed by these filth astounds and sickens me.

    Yet another temptation to induce me to undergo the paranoia of U.S. immigration and pay 14 dollars for the privilege...but for Belgian food...!
    Thank you David, that's a super offer!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Steve, amazing the effect of Mr. Boycott even after all these years....

    ReplyDelete
  5. Congratulations on the award. My eight conditions would be very similar to yours and yes I also love cricket. (Leo!) Sadly it is not a sport played in France, and I have not got the luxury of Eurosport, so although I can follow the scores here I don't get to watch the match often. My husband keeps me up to date with the highlights but somehow it is not the same. I am still a big S.Africa follower though. That also includes the ones in the British team :-) Diane

    ReplyDelete
  6. Diane, thank you very much.
    Well, I won't pay for Sky...and even if I would we won't get cricket on it when we move. so it's TMS.

    South Africa has always produced some brilliant players...whoever they end up playing for!
    And we seem to have heard an end of that 'choking' taunt recently.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh, I wish you hadn't mentioned cricket! It is one thing I really miss over here. I used to play club cricket but that's a long time ago.

    I LOVE watching test match cricket but haven't for ages; my two weeks in England this summer saw me glued to TV watching as much as I could.

    I used to be a member of Kent Cricket Club and would pop over to Canterbury for a day to watch a match but finances have dwindled and I can't afford membership or the Eurostar for such a trip (feeding children, apparently, according to my wife, comes first; the French! what do they know about priorities!)

    Boycott! I love Sir Geoffrey (come on Queenie, knight him). He was my hero when I were a lad living in Leeds, Yorkshire, and when my family moved to Kent (oddly, we lived near a village called Leeds) I proudly took my Geoff Boycott bat to school. Not a smart move in a county that loved Cowdrey but anyone who badmouthed my Boycs copped it with the bat.

    And the silly thing is I was born in Kent (my dad was a Tyke).

    ReplyDelete
  8. The only thing I really like about cricket is the writer Neville Cardus (not alive now alas), but everything he wrote was so good that his prose made me begin to watch games alongside my dad (who was indeed a cricket fan). Gosh - I expressed this really poorly but I am sure you know what I mean.

    As for soggy books - isn't it maddening when they just fall in. I love spending a long long time reading in the bath - my mum did it and I copied her, even down to the glass of wine at my side.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Dumdad, I do miss cricket...I used to shoot over to The Oval when time permitted while working in London.
    Quite agree about priorities...the children should be sent down the mines before father has to give up his KCC membership... but trust the French to close the mines....
    Another member of the Boycott fan club!
    I don't think I'll be buying the Boycott cushion, but the hat tempts me.

    ReplyDelete
  10. French Fancy, I was given one of the Cardus books as a birthday present when young...and I have spent the last few minutes rummaging around trying to find the biography that I bought a few weeks ago which reveals a tremendous amount about his life.
    I can't of course put my hand on it.

    As to bathtime reading, I have an ancient plastic bathtray which is a bit deeper than the usual variety and if I am careful it will keep a book at reading position while all but my head and one hand is submerged.
    Doesn't help when the dog comes in to see what I am doing.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I love these things, finding out about my fellow bloggers.

    Pearl

    ReplyDelete
  12. Pearl, good job there were only eight points.....

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'm an Aries too - congrats on the award and oh! How I wish I had a bath to drop a book into - a shower is just not the same!! One day..

    ReplyDelete
  14. Congratulations and thoroughly deserved, and so nice to find out more about you. I agree with you about Tony Blair in all his smug hypocrisy, and also for his appalling taste in spousal material. There is more, much more about him and others of his ilk as well.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Roz, thank you.
    Even I can't do book and shower at the same time! Been tempted though.
    I prefer a bath...always associate a shower with rushing to get out of the house.

    mrwriteon, thank you.
    the Blair Booth duo sum up this era of amoral moneygrubbing...and no sign to an end of it.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Fly- Congrats to you...you know how I love it when you get going! And thank you so much for passing it on. Do I really whine that much? Yikes! By the way I knew you were a bit of a softy at heart. I laughed when you mentioned bathtub reading. I have so many rumpled paged books from their just-before-sleep-oops-jerk-awake plunge into the tub. It's probably well and good that I don't have a tub. But I so miss those pruny-toed soaks. As for cricket...well I had to look up "Test Match Special" in google to find out what that was! I can't contribute to that conversation.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Oh Thank You for the lovely award. That's so nice. I will display it in a prominent place and keep it well dusted.
    :-)
    p.s. I also have lots of soggy edged books.

    ReplyDelete
  18. well deserved - and the mushroom post was great

    ReplyDelete
  19. Delana, TMS is something you're born to..I think.
    Never mind being Jewish only if your mother is...
    TMS is much more exclusive!
    But if you want to get a sense of how England is changing,just listen to the commentators....different ages, different assumptions through the prism of a sport - a sociologist should take it up.

    And Mr.Boycott is a cult figure...well, these days.
    He has had his moments of calumny, but he is about the bravest chap I know...not only facing hard leather balls bowled at over 100 miles per hour, but also throat cancer...and, finally responsibility for a wife and child who has just been awarded her degree.

    Softy...me? Damn right or I wouldn't have so many problems born of the idea that other people are as straightforward as I hope I am.
    I go into bat..cricket again...for Mr.Fly and I play within within the rules. Pity that the French don't do likewise.

    No you don't whine. You might be well justified to do so, but you don't.
    Sorry if that was how it came over...not at all what I intended.
    I'm always astounded how you face up to things and get them to work your way.

    Since your last post ...la mer...all I can hear is the Charles Trenet thing and all I can see in the mind's eye is the spoof of the pandar in the dressing gown contemplating the matelots...but I can't for the life of me remember the context!

    Clipppy Mat..sorry about the dusting! I'm packing up and think the weight of dust about halves the weight of the object to be packed.
    Soggy books...my shame.

    Lulu LaBonne, we will be off to Ceylon in about two years time.
    Mr Fly started reminiscing...BIL also...and it's all thanks to you!
    Glad you enjoyed the mushroom thing. I was quite surprised to find how timorous people were.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Dear Fly

    Isn't it wonderful to be Aries? I always feel so sorry for anybody who isn't. :)

    Most of your 8 points would tally with mine, apart from the cricket about which I know nothing. And of course I don't know Mr Fly, but I'm sure I'd love him to bits if I did.

    What is Belgian food? Is that chocolate? :)

    Many thanks for the award, I will try to live up to it.

    ReplyDelete
  21. nodamnblog, Beñgian food!
    Well, for a start the Belgians can bake bread unlike the French. Even the stuff in the bread dispensers is good.
    Grey shrimps...waterzooi...amazing smoked fish,a beef stew made with wine, mustard and jam whose name I never know...
    and don't laugh at the endive!
    Bought from the guys who still grow them in soil in sort of cellars, they are super!

    I can live with the chocolate too...and I'm not a chocolate fiend.

    As to Mr. Fly he can be, as they say, an acquired taste....but once acquired...

    ReplyDelete
  22. Love your eight things...

    I hope you and Mr. Fly are well.

    ReplyDelete
  23. e...glad you enjoyed them.
    I'm fine and he is a bit under the weather.

    ReplyDelete
  24. What happened to your last post? It's disappeared! And there was me settling down to have a good read :)

    ReplyDelete
  25. Fly, I wanted to say thank you for the nod! And also thank you for your enlightening, entertaining blog. You have helped me feel like I am not losing my mind in France (or if I am, that there is good reason for it). I agree with you on Belgian food, a trip to Gent last year was a revelation - fantastic place, amazing food.

    ReplyDelete
  26. I like all of the above. You sound more and more appealing! Agree with you about the cricket. I withhold it from myself like I do with the blogging sometimes...which is a bit daft I know. Considering how much I like both.

    I've got a super little cricket bat autographed by the entire South African cricket team including the sadly demised Hansie Cronje.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Always nice to know more about you, Fly. Hope Mr Fly feels better soon. And some great recommendations - thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  28. Sarah, it is on its way....the dog turned up alongside while I was typing and I pressed the wrong button! You and the sodding cat...me and the sodding dog...

    Amy, can't beat Belgian food! Glad you're another convert!
    I think if you don't wear rose tinted specs, France is a strange place to anyone coming from common law countries...to me it is often stultifyingly conformist.

    Hadriana's Treasures, I don't hold back from pleasure...might not get the chance of whatever it is again...

    Pueblo girl, they are super blogs, aren't they! He's up and down at the moment...too much going on in his life, but thanks for the kind wishes.

    ReplyDelete