I've also seen the nastier side of blogging. Thankfully this had been rare, especially when compared to the warmth, friendliness and generosity of most bloggers. However, the bad times can be depressing (and made me think about giving up on a couple of occasions), so this post is a reminder of all the good times to counteract all of that, nicely bundled up into one shiny package.
Some bloggers don't like to join in with tags and awards. They may be too busy to do them, or feel they don't fit with their blog content or style; they may not like the handing on and linking back aspects; or they may have had them so many times before, they feel they have exhausted the topic or friends to hand their award on to. I respect that, but so far I've chosen to join in. However, my tag or award is always given without obligation - no matter what 'rules' the originator may have given to their tag or award. It's may way of saying thanks to a blogger for the pleasure they've given, or to say I'd like to get to know someone better.
Displaying the awards given is also controversial. Some tags and awards have 'rules' which ask you to do so. I've chosen not to, except for a couple of awards I've been given after being nominated and voted for. An award from an entire section of the blogging community is a somewhat special after all! The others I've chosen to show as part of a post as I believe this still acknowledges the gift of the bestower, whilst ensuring my sidebar is kept relatively clear.
So without further ado here's my summary of my tags and awards from the past year over at Veg Plotting.
Voted Awards - also displayed at Veg Plotting
Sadly there's no glittering awards ceremony to accompany these, but they're much appreciated all the same.
September's inaugural Blotanicals saw my nomination for two awards - Best UK blog and Best Agrarian blog. I was delighted to be voted Best Agrarian blog and fourth for Best UK. 
During May a lot of fun was to be had over at The Garden Monkey where a variety of humourous and teasing awards were up for grabs. I was nominated for a number of these (Favourite Way of Wasting Time, What's New Pussycat - well Skimble and Jess were, and We Are All in the Gutter), and carried off the award for Bad Poetry. I even wrote a poem to celebrate!
Judged Awards
In August the delightful Emmat held a virtual village show to coincide with the opening of my virtual garden fundraiser. There was plenty of fun. mayhem and stretching of the rules. It may have looked like any village produce show on the surface, but Emsworth was much better and just as keenly fought. I entered as many categories as I could which in turn garnered me the Emsworthian Medal for Achievement Across All Categories!
Nominated Awards
Authorblog has a regular Post of the Day slot where someone can nominate a post from other blogs they feel to be of particular merit. I've yet to make top spot, but I'm glad to have made runner up on several occasions for Signs of Tinsel Town, Hollywood Inaction and Strange Brew.Passalong Awards
My first ever award! Given to me by my dear friend Threadspider in January. Hot on its heels a couple of days later came this one from another early friend, Flighty.
A month later, fellow ABC Wednesday contributor Dragonstar gave me this:
It went quiet for a couple of months, then the following arrived in quick succession:
A dual award this one - from the delightful Prairie Rose and Violtje.
Somebody knows me only too well - Suburbia this time!
This one came from Deborah, who used to live near here, but now is up to far more interesting things in France.
Finally in July, Victoria saw fit to give me this to put in my trophy cabinet.
Update - November 2008
I received this completely out of the blue from a blog that's new to me. Naturally I called the post about it A Gift From a Stranger :)
Playing Tag
Quite a lot of the tags I've been given are based on a random facts meme. My first one from Lisa last December asked for eight; three others (from Simon, Violtje and Gardening4Life respectively) asked for six - you can peruse them here and here and even here. A variation on this was a tricky questions meme from both Suburbia and Growing Our Own. I've seen several other versions of this tag too.
Tags don't have to be facts or questionnaires. I wasn't specifically tagged for this, but I did enjoy responding to A Life With a View's general tag (another idea for if you want to respond to a tag, but don't want to hand it on to specific recipients) to show off my screen saver. That brings me to another reason why I enjoy tags: they can be a great idea for a post. So why not use them as writing/photo prompts even if you haven't been tagged yourself?
Memes
There's lots of these on all kinds of topics. I'll be writing a guide to some of them at some point this winter. There's one-offs and regulars. Most of them have a shiny badge awarded to show completion or regular participation. An exception to this is Garden Bloggers' Blooms Day. I wrote a general guide to memes including this, plus another of my regulars here. Another exception to badge awarding is Garden Bloggers' Design Workshop - I participate in this, if I have a suitable contribution to make to the month's topic. By the way, badges aren't the reason why I decide to participate (else they'd be there cluttering up the sidebar on Veg Plotting), it's whether I have something to say that's the key thing for me.
However, here are my badges:
...and the Blue Poppy Award from Bloomingwriter as a thank you.
ABC Wednesday
Round 2 - Completed July 2008, hosted by Mrs Nesbitt
ABC Wednesday Round 3 - in progress (Q @ 12/11/2008)
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