Dear Jack, that washed up pretty boy over at Perking the Pansies laughed at my workload and decided to nominate me for the Seven Links Project which was started by Katie at Trip Base

The idea is for bloggers to reflect on their work and share their thoughts by linking to posts in certain categories and so the whole blogging community learns a little. As I have “reflective practice” running through my bones like a stick of Blackpool rock (along with “Do your homework”) I had to comply and so put other stuff aside to think about the posts I have made.

THE RULES

1. The Blogger is nominated to take part by another blogger
2. He/she publishes their 7 links on their own blog. One Link for each category
3. They nominate up to five more bloggers to take part.

My most beautiful post – The Character of Trees

I love this post, for me it sums up the benefits of living in this beautiful place for a significant amount of time, you get to learn the little things, the things that take years to notice and they become your seasonal landmarks. Writing stuff like this makes me happy and if I’m happy I write more and that’s really essential for a blogger, write depressing or angry stuff all the time and you’ll lose the will to write, this is meant to be fun.

My most popular post – Italian Grape Cake

In terms of hits my flipping grape cake recipe is top of the list. I think there must be a lot of people in the world with too many grapes on their hands and so searching for a recipe to use them up. Every day this post brings in hits from the search engines from all over the world. It is a good recipe though. Lesson learned be accurate in your keywords and people find you because you have what they need.

If it comes down to just comments then this is the most popular – . Things I wish I brought and things I’m glad I brought

My most controversial post – Pimp my Dolmus

When I wrote Pimp my Dolmus everyone I know seemed to love it, and then it was published in the media and it got a bit of flack for being disrespectful, which only goes to highlight that the comments on your blog may not reflect the whole picture – never believe your own publicity!

That said, I didn’t think it was disrespectful and any country so far up its own arse as to find this offensive either hasn’t got enough to moan about or is desperately insecure neither of which should apply to Turkey. I think the point is though, as bloggers we acquire followers and they learn about us over time and get to like us and see the different facets of our writing and our personality and one post taken in isolation can give a skewed impression of us, so we sometimes need to understand that.

My most helpful post – New Residency Permit costs

At the time when there was a lot of confusion over the residency permit costs and a few rumours about possible duration and citizenship issues I wrote this and it is read regularly and is high in the search engine rankings. I think it is a clear post, it covers the essentials and it debunks a few myths and I even tried to answer an extra question from one of our Canadian cousins in the comments – helpful me!

A post whose success surprises me – Easyjet and Aerlingus announce new flights to Turkey

Last night I was number 1 on Google Ireland for the search term “Aerlingus direct flights to Turkey” – I’m pretty sure Aer Lingus itself should be top of the list but who argues with the Google algorithm when it works in your favour. Anything to do with flight routes or specific transport information seems to rank well and every day this post brings in hits.

A post I feel didn’t get the attention it deserved – How to be koy, buying in the villages in Turkey .

Given how often every day “village house for sale” comes up in my search stats this should be required reading for a lot of visitors to my blog particularly as I made it as detailed and clear as I could and I don’t know of anywhere else where this information appears. However this post rarely gets read and I really believe most people just want to look at pictures of houses and dream rather than learn the procedure involved in buying them. Sometimes we can be too informative.

As a result I don’t often give advice on property buying or indeed anything legal related in Turkey as despite a romork load of direct experience in everything from real estate to company running to inheritance law I find most people don’t want to go to the effort of reading and absorbing how to do it and would prefer to listen to someone less experienced who is Turkish and who doesn’t have breasts – this is me, all teeth and tits and British to boot; I don’t look like I should know how to do the things I’ve done.

The post I am most proud of – My Beloved Husband

I am proud of the eulogy I wrote for my husband. I’m proud of it because I got it right at a time when I should have been nothing more than a puddle of tears and it really does fit him and the man he was. He was a very British man and he believed that when things are tough that is when we should perform the best, and I believe that too, we don’t panic, we don’t have hysterics, we get the job done and so if I can produce something like this when times are very tough indeed then I’m good at what I do.

Sometimes I think I should take it down and that it shouldn’t be here and I should stop inflicting this on people but then I think he was all about the internet, he loved it so much, and he built this site and he is me and so it stays.

The second part of this mass blogger reflection on our work involves nominating other people to share their feelings and findings about their sites, so I nominate these lovely people to share what they have learned.

Linda – Ayak’s Turkish Delight
Terry – Adventures in Ankara.com/
Annie – Moving On
Perpetua –Perpetually in Transit
Kerry – Earth Laughs in Flowers

• best blog posts,
• blogging in Turkey,
• Turkish blogs,
• what makes a blog popular