First Blogoversary

One year ago today I published my first post and became a blogger.

Image by Ciara (public domain)

One year and over 100 posts later, I can say that it has been a marvellous experience. I feel very lucky to have had so many visitors and received supportive comments from experienced bloggers from all over the world. 

I was honoured to get the Sunshine Blogger Award from lovely, funny Marcia at Menopausal Mother and especially honoured to be mentioned as deserving Jo Bryant's awards at Chronicles of Illusions. Jo's blog is in a class of its own so being considered worthy of an award by her is really special. Thank you, Marcia and Jo, from the bottom of my heart. Perhaps I should reconsider and get more into the award thing as it does bring in a lot of traffic... hmm... I don't know.

I was very surprised to get an invitation from Polly Allen @holidays.easyjet.com to enter a competition. I nearly didn't even open her email, thinking it was spam/scam, so I ended up doing the Insider Tips post just before the deadline and it was only yesterday, while I was googling for something quite unrelated that I discovered that I had been included as a "top blogger" and "Algarve expert" on EasyJet's Insider Tips from Top Bloggers. Wow, that brought a smile to my face!

Thank you to all those who visit and especially to those who leave comments. I will try to keep you coming back.

Reflection

Reflection of an image

When I was walking around taking photos for the Sunday post theme "Vehicle", I almost deleted this shot before I noticed the birds - live, painted and reflected.

"Reflection" is the theme for today's Sunday Post and here it is:

Reflection - careful thought about a particular subject

Having been a blogger for just over six months now, I have been reflecting on the reasons I started taking photos and writing posts, and on how much fun and enriching the experience has been. 

I have had more than 5 thousand page views, which may seem a drop in the ocean to some, but to me it feels rather awesome. I have discovered many fantastic blogs, learnt how to do stuff I didn't know existed and made many new friends in the blogosphere. This wouldn't have been possible without you, welcome visitors to my blog, and especially to those who have left comments. Thank you!

To join in the challenge and see other bloggers' takes on the theme, don't forget to visit Jake's blog.