A Trio for 300

These wines, all from the Hérault department in the Languedoc-Rousillon region in the south of France, represent three women who inspired and encouraged me to join Blipfoto, and seemed an appropriate way to celebrate my 300th consecutive blip.

There's a back story to this -- in 2008, Phil (Pilipo) and I spent a couple of blissful days at Le Couvent B&B, located in a small village in the above part of France. From the moment we were greeted by Lizzie and Ali until our final farewell, we felt like family, and knew we had to return for another visit sometime.

That happened on September 14, 2011 -- and as we entered the courtyard and hugged our friends, Lizzie said "I've joined Blipfoto today!" She'd chosen 5000vines as her Blip name, reflecting the wines she and Ali make from their own grapes.

Two days later, Phil and I had a delightful Blipmeet with chaiselongue and LoJ, organized in advance of our visit. (I was familiar with her food blog, as well as following her Blipfoto journal, which Phil had subscribed to for some time.)

The combination of Lizzie becoming a Blipper just as we arrived, and that wonderful afternoon with chaiselongue, described so well in her Blip entry for that day, made me rethink my resistance to Blipfoto. Phil had been encouraging me for some time to give it a try, but I'd been holding back, feeling that I was too busy with volunteer work to take on another project, but all of a sudden I realized that by joining Blipfoto, I could easily keep in touch with people I cared about who lived nine time zones and thousands of miles away!

And on October 2, less than a week before I joined Blipfoto, Ali -- BrodieB -- published her first entry, and has given me yet another view of the area I love so much! It's comforting to realize that even if we don't make it back to France again, we'll always know what's going on in the lives of our dear friends there.

I have a number of Blip friends now -- Blip buddies, to use PaulFS's term -- and was thrilled to meet Portland (Oregon) blippers kendallishere, TerriG, and grazingllama there in April. There are many others in the United States, the UK, and Europe whom I hope meet in person in the next few years -- wonderful folks I never would have known, were it not for Blipfoto! Here's to all of you!