I am so sorry for having not updated this blog since January! I am a disgrace. In my defence I have been busy making movies and travelling. I am currently on location in Malta subject to my NDA. Where I have been living in a five star hotel & spa for several weeks. Due a joint strike of both screenwriters and actors filming has paused on the production I’m on. I can give you a hit as to which one that is- Colosseum. Rome. A Man in his 80s still making movies. Features prominent young up and coming Irish actor who was the male lead in Normal People.

Malta has helped me focus despite the current blistering heat of the Cerberus heatwave. I have been drawing and reading a lot.

I’m going to batch write a number of reviews of the books I have been reading while on location. Which are going to drop each Wednesday at 11am. If I can!

Please note the picture below of the lace bookmark. It was hand crafted on Gozo. Gozo is stunningly Beautiful. Gozo and Malta have a long tradition of lacemaking. I purchased this bookmark along with a broad lace collar and a silk shawl with lace insets near  it-Tempji tal-Ġgantija. I resisted buying the very expensive shawl… for the moment. There were also numerous doilies on display of irrefutably good workmanship. The lovely shop owner explained that the lacecraft was dying in the village of Ggantija and that the young people of the village were not keen to learn it from their elders. Although the doilies are beautiful… I cannot help but reflect that doilies peaked in the mid 19th century and did go out of fashion in the late 1930s. As a keen crafter, I’m not sure if doilies are going to save Gozo’s lacemaking traditions. I think my only doily purchase shall be ironic. To top my 1930s sewing cabinet and to prevent a ring forming from the vase of flowers I’d aspire to maintain on its walnut lid. I really think some initiative needs to be taken to make something a little more sexy than doilies to save lacemaking in Ggantija.

May I add that the day I choose to visit Gozo it was 37 degrees. I prepared myself by dressing head to toe in white linen and lace accessorised with a satin Chinese sunshade. I took respite in the black cat café in Victoria which was run by a lovely pair of Australians. A Delicious salmon & Avo bagel accompanied with a iced coffee later I was ready to visit Ggantija’s famous temple. After visiting the temple and the lace shop I then visited the salt pans and I was so overheated…it was forty degrees…I folded my clothes and I threw myself into the Mediterranean sea in my slip. I dried off in the sun at the beach’s tuck shop while enjoying a lemoncello spritz before hightailing back to the ferry port.

While our production is on hold, what shall I do with myself? I guess my tax return calls and I shall return to Ratoath for a visit in August. I often think that possessing the time to do whatever I like makes me feel like a 19th century landed gentry. It’s in those moments I literally have all the time in the world… and often so much I’m at a loss to do with it.

I have recently just finished reading John Van Epp’s How To Avoid Falling In Love With A Jerk And I’m currently reading an easy novel full of heart called The Authenticity Project by Claire Pooley.

Other titles I have read while in Malta:

The Post Office Girl by Stephen Zwig

I am, I am, I am by Maggie O’Farrell

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

The Tastemaker by Tony King

Let’s Talk by Nihal Arthanayake

Can’t Even by Anne Helen Peterson

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

A crack in Creation by Jennifer Doudna

Good Omens- by Neil Gaimen & Terry Prachett (Third Time ahead of prime releasing the TV adaptation’s second season)