Twelve more days

Do you know that song by Bob Dylan called Seven Days?  The one about waiting for his sweetie to come home?  One of the lines reads "Seven more days, all I gotta do is survive"?

Of course you do.  And this is all by way of saying that the One Hundredth (!!!) Tour de France starts on June 29th.  Twelve more days.  All I gotta do is survive.

This will be the seventh Tour we've covered in depth here at The Year of Magical Painting, and every year is either less or more special than the last.  Which brings to mind both Bilbo Baggins famous farewell quote to the attendees of his 150th birthday ...

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."  

... and 1934 US Open winner Olin Dutra's advice for winning at Merion ...

"Just hit the next one better."

Which, along with about two thirds of Jane Austen and the line "There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing around in boats" from The Wind in the Willows, tells you at least 40% of what you need to know about quite a bit of life.

Was it his 150th birthday?
Half of me says yes; 30% says no.  I'm trying to remember.