Back again. Sort of.

It's been a while. My resolution to share something once a week has been a miserable fail. The thing is, I seem to prefer spending my evenings reading rather than writing because I am usually tired and reading is a more passive activity, but when I'm writing I actually have to think. And then there's the urgent need to get the thoughts about my most recent read on paper, which takes up quite a bit of my time; coupled with the niggling feeling of inadequacy that raises its head every time I read a mind-blowing book. How can I ever compare? I know I don't need to. Because comparisons are odious and all that. But I don't seem to be able to stop myself. So, every so often, I start writing a post with the intention of finishing it and actually pressing the 'Publish' button. But, more often than not, I don't and it languishes in my 'Unpublished Posts' folder for ever.

Spring is here, a season I enjoy. My husband and I have made plans for a trip to celebrate our 20th anniversary that is coming up in June. I hope to share more about our trip later. We're also hoping to go on a family vacation in summer, preferably to a place that won't be too hot, like Ireland or Scotland, but we haven't really decided yet.

Easter Dessert

With Easter round the corner I've been looking for some easy but stunning cake recipes. We recently visited Guido's Spice Corner in Valletta. It is a tiny shop that sells a variety of spices, herbal teas and, more importantly for me, edible rose petals. I was really excited at the prospect of using them to decorate my Easter dessert. Novel items like edible flowers were hard to come by until fairly recently, so this is the first time I am using rose petals. I'm thinking of making one of the two cakes below and I hope they taste as good as they look.

Raspberries and cream cake with rose petals

Persian Love cake

Spring Walks

I'm on vacation today and Monday and tomorrow is a public holiday. Which means I hope to have time to relax and do some things I enjoy. Last Friday was also a public holiday and my husband and I went for a walk at Blata tal-Melh. Except for two fishermen in the distance, we were the only ones there. The silence was heavenly. Even though we were several metres above the sea, we could still hear it. It is one of my favourite sounds. It murmurs and signs and booms. Even on the calmest day it will make little  suckling noises like a hungry baby. I hope we will go on some other walks during this long weekend. Being out in the open air is so invigorating and spring is the best time to do it.

Spring Cleaning

Spring is also the perfect season to declutter. The most difficult decision is where to start but our garage and several closets need to be expurgated of items that we're solely keeping for sentimental reasons, even if they are damaged beyond repair or are no longer useful. I hate having to add our castaways to Malta's ever-growing landfills and we do try to reuse and recycle as much as possible. But there are some culprits, like electronics, that nobody can do much with. We found an old camcorder with videos of our son from when he was 2 or 3 still on it. It was a wonderful surprise to relive those special moments. I wish we'd taken more clips when he was still so young.

But back to the subject of decluttering, I definitely need to remove a considerable amount of clothes from my closet. I've only worn most of them once or twice but my tastes have changed and I am trying to wear natural fibres as much as possible. It helps with the heat and hot flushes. I'm not sure what to do with the clothes I no longer wear though. A few weeks ago, Kim of  the blog Northern California Style shared some greener options to consider when deciding to purge clothes from your closet. You can read her informative post here. Unfortunately, it is a a bit more difficult to find greener options here in Malta but I recently discovered the FEM Community. This all-female community of small business owners organises monthly markets in spring and autumn and during the run-up to Christmas. They have two options for used clothes that I am considering: selling the clothes myself during one of their monthly Sunday markets or donating the clothes to them to sell. They use the proceeds from sales of clothes towards the volunteer organization Female Entrepreneurs Malta, which raises funds towards learning and growing initiatives for women in business. Of course there are also charity and thrift shops that accept donations, and vintage boutiques like TaylorMaid Vintage and Vogue Xchange, Both of these stores rework items that are no longer wearable into unique pieces. All of these are wonderful initiatives but I've vome to believe that I really should refrain from buying anything just because it is on sale and only purchase items I know that I will wear and love for many years.

That's about all I have time for today. 

I would like to wish you all a very Happy Easter.

Location: Blata tal-Melh, March 2023