Ten to Four . . .

There is an expression in French : "d'être sur le cul !", which translates roughly as "to be on one's ass", and it is usually used to express the fact of being quite agreeably surprised by some astonishingly happy event. Well, excuse my French, but I am on my ass today because after 8 months of blogging, this humble blog received two awards today. . . a Noblesse Oblige Award passed on by Steve in the UK (whose Bloggertropolis is a joyous place to visit, some truly excellent writing happening there !) and a Kreative Blogger Award from Laurie, also in the UK (do not miss Creating Pictures In My Mind, she shares my passion, or I hers, whichever for cemeteries and funerary art). Wow, Laurie and Steve, I don't know what to say, other than, can you please each reach out a hand to help me get back up off my ass ?
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Perhaps instead of saying something and waxing sappy, I'll just post a photo which means alot to me. In case you were wondering why I changed part of the title of this blog recently to "Mr Toad's Travel Diary", it is because I have always loved the story "The Wind In The Willows", and because my wife calls me "Toad" alot, except she says it in French, so it's "Crapaud". She does this because I call her "Frog" or "la Grenouille", because she is French, and that is what Americans often call French people in general. I met la Grenouille for the first time at a party in Paris the night before I was flying back to the US in September 1991, after having spent two weeks travelling in eastern and southern France. We had talked for quite a while at that party, and she gave me her address before I left. A month or two later I sent her a framed print of this photo (which I took in a small village near Ornans, France - Gustave Courbet's birthplace) as a Christmas present. I can only imagine this small gift made an impression on la Grenouille, as less than one year later we were married ! Sometimes small gestures have big impacts ! The title of the photo is Ten to Four . . .
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