May round-up and faves

As from this month, I’ve decided to include a short round-up about what I’ve been up to together with my list of favourite links.

Life lately

May has been pretty quiet on a social level. We didn’t really do much and spent most of our free time at home, doing some gardening and some minor projects around the house.

The highlight of the month was probably Mother’s Day. I was given a beautiful mauve-coloured hydrangea by my husband and son to mark the day. I have planted it next to my fuchsia one which hasn’t flowered yet as it has been cooler than usual this spring. Hydrangeas are fast becoming by favourite flowers on account of the size and longevity of their blooms.

In April faves, I wrote about my new fragrance: My  Burberry, which I am absolutely loving but the 90ml bottle is too big and heavy to lug around when travelling. So I have found another great scent: White Musk Flora from The Body Shop. It has a lovely floral fragrance that  is perfect for summer and its small size (30ml) makes it a perfect addition to my travelling beauty bag.

I’ve read two enjoyable books this month: The Beekeeper’s Daughter by Santa Montefiore and Let Me Tell You About a Man I Knew by Susan Fletcher. I’ll talk about them more when I write about the books I read in Spring. If you missed my post about the books I read this past winter, you can find it here.

Looking forward to …

On June 8th we will be attending the opening of a collective art exhibition at the Wignacourt Museum. The exhibition, Unity in Diversity, is being organised by my friend, artist Carmen Vella Gauci, with the participation of artists and photographers from Rabat and the surrounding localities. It will run until the 8th of July and my husband will be exhibiting 3 paintings.

On June 15th we will celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary. Our celebrations are usually low-key and we will probably just go out for a nice dinner somewhere – which will give me the opportunity to dress up and reminisce about the day. It’s good to keep special memories alive and, in an effort to do so, I had written about our Big Day in this blog  post.

Favourite links

1. I made this Berry Vanilla Naked Cake with Lemon Whipped  Cream (it’s quite a mouthful but I didn’t come up with the name – blame A Latte Food from where I got the recipe) for Easter and it tasted absolutely divine. Berry season is almost over here but I know it lasts until July or August in most countries. I did tweak the recipe a little bit because I used blueberries instead of raspberries as my father doesn’t like tart fruit.
   

   
2. Cindy Hattersley shared eight tips for growing beautiful container gardens that I wish I had read earlier this spring because I would have liked to get a few going while the weather was still nice and cool. I think it might be a bit too late now.
3. If, like me, you don’t have the time and patience to go to a beauty salon to get your nails done, Lauren Conrad shares some tips for the perfect at-home manicure. I have to confess that I would always make a mess of my nails, so now I paint them while watching TV on a Saturday night and by the time the movie is over, they are dry and don’t smudge. I’ve finally nailed it.
4. This Lavender Sugar Cube scrub is easy to make at home and would make a cute gift for a friend.
5. I was happy to see that Malta’s most precious gem, the old walled town of Mdina, has made it to The Everygirl’s  list of the Instagrammable Spots in Europe You Should Add to Your Travel Bucket List. I am certainly biased but Mdina is a very special place that I will be sharing with you in future posts. And you will be able to see a side to it that tourists rarely get to experience because no one knows Mdina quite like a local.

My favourite Instagram photo of the month

is Stephen Matera’s (@stephen_matera) photo of California’s super bloom. The colours are simply breath-taking.

That’s all I have to share for this month. I hope you find at least a few of the links interesting. I’ve been scribbling a lot lately but whether any of my scribbles will see the light of day or whether they’ll remain hidden away in some dog-eared notebook, only time will tell. Have a wonderful week.