Week 11

Hey sweet peas!

We're back in merry England and more than a little worn out (fannying around on a deckchair and getting burnt to a crisp was more taxing than you anticipated) but now that we come to report on our happenings, the week suddenly seems a lot less full. We did go to Malta, and went snorkelling, and perved on the pool boys, and ate more than our fair share of Cola flavoured Calippos, and went jet skiing, and got dragged around by a speed boat onboard a giant banana, and was flabbergastered by St John's co-Cathedral (high baroque like you've never even imagined) and rode on a super retro yellow bus...but somehow the week seems to have escaped us. In any case we're happy to be back and ready to cook up some little crafting wonders over the next few weeks so stay tuned.

We found the flower shaped marshmellows in a corner shop in Malta and it was a toss up between this and a giant ass sandcastle. Sweety jewellery won. Our delectable accessories include Polo mints, liquorice all-sorts, Haribo star mix and some jelly beans, all put together with the sweing kit we nicked from the hotel.

Total cost- £3.70

This week we love...

Made of Bricks- Kate Nash

We would like, just for a second, for you to ignore the fact that the girl ever dished out her second album while simultaneously blocking out the radio repeat that 'Foundations' became (although Paolo Nutini did a pretty good cover of it). Now we would like your unprejudiced attention. This is a fun album. 'Birds', 'Skeleton Song' and 'Nicest Thing' are fucking great to have in the background while you're busy crafting, and take a peak at these lyrics from 'Mariella':

At school, Mariella didn't have many friends, yeah, the girls there, they looked at her and thought she was quite strange.

Boys aren't really into girls at that age.

And the teachers, they thought Mariella was just going through a phase.

But Mariella just smiled as she skipped down the road because she knew all the secrets in her world.

yeah, she always got the crossword puzzle right every day and she could do the alphabet backwards, without making any mistakes. Mariella. Mariella. Pretty, pretty girl. Mariella. Mariella. Happy in her own little world

Sounds like our kind of girl.

Control- Anton Corblin

Completely in contrast to the general sunshine and happiness of the dregs of summer is the life of Ian Curtis, miserable git and lead singer of Joy Division. Young poet, epileptic, married at 19 and suicidal at 23 his story as reenacted by Sam Riley reminds me a little bit of a Soviet block building: bleak but with something weirdly romantic about it. As is often the case with black and white films simple shots of concrete buildings, dingy pubs, mugs of tea and isolated pay phones evoke something not unlike nostalgia but also convey an intense feeling of suffocation. Cinematically beautiful and endlessly depressing, it's a worthwhile watch even if you've never heard of the band, although it's worth noting Ian's kooky dance moves. Wicked.

This week's featured place- Malta

It's a little bit overwhelming trying to give a review of an entire coutry, even if it does only cover an area of 316km2, but here we go.

I started with pretty low expectations of Malta, thinking of it as a synonym to Canary Islands, Tenerife or any other Meditteranean island populated by the pink, drunken loud-mouth we call the holidaying Englishman, but as is often the case for over-judgemental little swots like myself, I quickly ate my own words.

Malta is gorgeous.

Think dusty coastal town made up of yellow brick buildings, shady side streets and beautiful churches. Now set it next to ultra marine seas and add a bunch of beautiful tanned people and you've got a fairly accurate first impression.

But now you look closer. You see yelloe/blue/green wooden boats lined up in St Julian's bay, awesomely tacky tributes to the Virgin Mary next to every house's doorbell, yellow and orange buses that somehow survived past the 70s zooming up hills, an alarming amount of Italian restaurants complete with candle-lit tables just to make you feel heartbrocken and fairy lights absolutely everywhere. I'm not going to deny that this is a tourist destination, and some people might find it off putting to have so many English shops (they even had M&S) but I for one was very pleasantly surprized and feel like another trip would be necessary to appreciate this retreat's full merit. Massive thumbs up.

Also...

We did these amazing portraits of our family while delayed on the plane for 2 hours but were really silly and forgot to bring them to our Grannies to scan them but we promise to put them on next week. Just as a teaser, we can warn you that they were done on green post-its and drawn without looking at the paper but staring intently at subject. Vair funny.