Blowing my own trumpet

I was really surprised and delighted to come joint first in the 7 day blogging challenge I recently participated in, organised by Jenson Taylor.

http://jensontaylor.blogspot.fr/2012/03/7-day-blogging-challenge-winners.html

Congratulations also to Karavikar Svetasreni who I share this accolade with. Have a look at her blog State of Being - she writes about environmental issues from her home in Bangkok.

I also wrote a guest blog post about pollinating insects for the main site (as opposed to the forum where I have been blathering since 2005!) at Selfsufficientish.com which I was pleased to have been asked to contribute to.

So, not wanting to post on my blog without a photo, and in the absence of a photo of me playing a trumpet, a pic of me playing the recorder in my primary school orchestra will have to do. Yes, I was once, erm, 'musical' (in other words, my recorder playing was preferable to my singing voice, and that probably is still true to this day).

2nd row back, on left, dark top, nearest the piano. C'est moi.

San Sebastian Sunday

Is it coincidence that my two other favourite, scenic cities by the sea, begin with the letter S? I've always adored Sydney and San Francisco what with their vast scenic harbours, amazing bridges, skyscrapers and famous landmarks such as the Opera House and Alcatraz Island. However there's a little gem in the Spanish Basque country which we discovered a couple of years ago and went back to visit last October. It doesn't have the skyscrapers, bridges, huge harbour or any manmade world famous landmarks and is tiny in comparison with the other two cities. But it makes up for it with its own natural landscape of bays, hills and beautiful sandy beaches, with a perfectly placed little island right in the middle. 

I'm not going into any history, discussing the Basque culture or doing a travelog here, other than mentioning that the city is also known as Donostia, its Basque name, but of course that doesn't work for this challenge. Today my photos are purely about scenic, seaside, San Sebastian, in Spain, on a sunny day. So much alliteration possible with the letter S! It's the last day of the challenge, its Sunday so let's just take it easy and do a virtual stroll around this incredible city.

I've taken the liberty of showing a fantastic photo which gives an overview of the most scenic part of the city, something that will make more sense of my own photos which follow (oh and some credit to my OH as well, as he took some of the photos too!).

Photo Credit: Keta, from Wikipedia Commons
From Mt Igueldo looking across La Concha Bay towards Mt Urgull, with the island
of Santa Clara in the middle of the bay

On the ocean side of Mt Urgull

From Monte Urgull looking across La Concha bay towards Monte Igueldo

Santa Clara island

Looking towards the city and the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains

Looking down over the old part of the city

Right at the top is a statue of Christ

And a little park, with Redstarts flitting about in the trees

Down the bottom again, in the Old Town, looking back up where we'd just walked and the statue

The City Hall, formerly a casino

Again, from the front

I know I've posted this photo before but this is where it belongs, in San Sebastian which is famous for its pintxos (tapas)!

This is the last of my 7 posts for the 7 day blogging challenge I've been taking part in. It's been great fun to do, if a bit time consuming, so I'm going to take a little break from blogging for a few days! I have been enjoying looking at the blogs of the other people who are doing this challenge as they are often very different from the kind of blogs I normally look at, so it has been quite eye opening to move out of the gardening/smallholding/cooking/crafting type of blogworld that I normally inhabit. It's been great to connect with many new people all over the world and I hope we continue to stay in touch via our blogs or on Google+. You're a great bunch!

Last but not least this blog challenge is all down to Jenson Taylor who took the initiative to organise this challenge on Google+ after an initial discussion on the Blogger Circle. His blog is well worth a look at if you are interested in slightly-techie-but-even-I-can-sort-of-understand-it tutorials for enhancing your usage of Facebook, Google+, Blogger, You Tube etc. Thanks Jenson.