Expats Blog Awards
A huge thank you to everyone that voted for Algarve Blog in the recent Expats Blog Awards – we are very proud to display our new Silver Award – and send hearty congratulations to Julie Dawn Fox in Portugal for winning Gold!
We received so many lovely comments and votes on our blog it was quite humbling – and encouraging! Thank you so much to everyone that took the time to vote.
Blog Layout
You may have noticed that our sidebar on the blog is looking decidedly less cluttered – I decided to have a clear out and tidy up a bit – so now all of our awards and badges can be found via the drop-down menus above:
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New Subscribers and Followers
A huge welcome is extended to all of our new subscribers – we seem to have had a flurry of new visitors, followers and people commenting on the blog recently – thank you so much – and thank you too to all the lovely followers that have been with us for ages – all of your comments and feedback really do make it all worthwhile.
Beautiful Blogger Award
It seems fitting that today we also celebrate being awarded the Beautiful Blogger Award – this came from The Palladian Traveler – his post A Cowardly, Gunslinging Blogger Award is fantastic and well worth a read! We are now one of his Magnificent Seven – an entertaining thought! I might be pretty good behind the wheel of car but I doubt I could manage to ride a horse!!
The rules of the award are quite simple:
1 Link back to the person that nominated you
2 Post the award to your page
3 Tell seven facts about yourself
4 Nominate seven bloggers and tell them about it
So here are seven ‘facts’ about me you may not know (or even want to know!) (although long-time readers of The Thought Palette might recognise them!)
1 I was born and grew up in inner-city Birmingham
2 I only learnt to ride a bicycle when I was 17!
3 I can’t sing in tune (at all!)
4 I love Cadbury’s chocolate and ‘Percy Pigs’
5 I am a very quick reader
6 I went on a ‘silent’ retreat time – and lasted less than 2 hours and went home again!
7 My ideal dinner party would have John Barrowman and David Tennant sat at the table! (Oh – and I wouldn’t be cooking!)
And here are the seven blogs I have nominated for this award:
Julie Dawn Fox in Portugal Well it’s not quite a shiny gold award but she definitely deserves this too – and I noticed that she doesn’t have it yet!
All of these blogs are interesting, inspiring and well illustrated with great photographs and worthy of the award.
Christmas is Coming!
We can’t really get into the festive spirit yet as we are surrounded by printer inks and paper – yes we are busy getting ready for our Christmas Sale!
If you are in the Algarve then do come along and see us!
You can enjoy seeing our recent work – and as it is Christmas and it is a sale – there will be lots of ‘Saldos’ signs and discounts!
You can enjoy some of Dave’s fabulous photographs of the Algarve Coast
And some of my new big bold flowers alongside my modern style pieces.
We have had some fab write-ups in the local press and online again – and thank you to everyone that is supporting us – especially the fabulous Holiday Inn Algarve hotel.
So have a great weekend everyone – and hope you have some sunshine wherever you are!
Congrats and haven’t you been busy!
thanks! yes it keeps me out of trouble!!
Congratulations on all your lovely awards – no wonder you’ve had to build a new page for them! And thank you for yet another one – my shelf would be quite empty without you
thank you – waving madly and grinning in a northerly direction at you! xx
Congratulations on your very well deserved award, Alyson!
thank you – and likewise to you too! xx
Yeah – congrats and so well deserved!
thank you!
CONGRATULATIONS!
BE ENCOURAGED! BE BLESSED!
thank you!
Congrats to you!
thank you kindly!
Congrats for all the so very well deserved accolades! Thanks a lot for the beautiful Blogger award. Loved your blog and following you now
great! have a lovely weekend
Congratulations Alyson. Best of luck with the art sale.
thanks Sami! I’ll post up and let you all know how it’s going next weekend!
Congratulations on your awards also. You have some really beautiful art work too.
thank you – I am lucky to be doing something I love doing
I have proposed you for Blog of the year 2012! Congratulations!http://b3yourself.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/blog-of-the-year-2012/
thank you so much!
ure welcome!:)
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Your blog is beautiful and interesting and deserves a lot of awards.
why thank you so much!
Beautiful work. I could lose myself here.
thank you
Congratulations and thank you for nominating me for the Beautiful Blogger award. Please forgive me for being SO slow about responding. That was so kind of you. I will post it tomorrow.
Marsha Lee 
no hurry at all! enjoy the festive season
Congratulations on your well deserved awards Alyson! I am touched and honoured to to be on your list of nominations! Thank you so much for the award and for leading me here. I look forward to exploring your beautiful blog
thank you – happy exploring and Merry Christmas!
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