Charlottes Collection | Leeds UK Blog : Fashion | Beauty

If you check out the Travel tag of this blog you'll see see that I go to Gozo and Malta quite a lot. After being home a month I thought it was about time I share a few pictures from my latest trip. In an attempt to give you a quick tour of these sunny islands that I love so much I'm going to split my holiday pictures over a few posts, a mini series of Gozo and Malta in 2014!

When we visit this little Mediterranean spot we always stay on the small island of Gozo, a lot more quiet, agricultural and relaxed than Malta. Gozo doesn't have the package holiday resorts Malta is known for, and instead is known for it's mixture of cultures, bird watching and walks, the ecoGozo project aims for Gozo to become an eco-island by 2020.

We like to go for lots of morning walks when we're visiting, particularly along the cliffs at the south of the island. Walking from Sannat to the beautiful Xlendi Bay, where its the perfect place to stop for a drink, the light white cliffs of Saguna and Sanap are a breathtaking contrast with the mediterranean sea below.

Right now Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are in Gozo filming 'By The Sea', a film which is set to be a romantic drama written and directed by Angelina Jolie. It's pretty exciting times for the island, it's especially exciting when I'm hearing that friends and family have caught a glimpse, or even spoken to the stars themselves!!

We walked along the Ta' Cenc cliffs ending up at Il-Kantra lido. Along the route you get the most amazing views with the citadel at Victoria and dome at Xewkija one side and the sea on the other. Once at the beautifully sheltered natural lido it's just a short drop down the hill to the bay of Mgarr-Ix-Xini, it's here where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are filming, you can see in the pictures two of the sets mid construction for the filming that's starting around now - one rather large 'hotel' on the cliff, and a bar / tavern in the bay.

Mgarr-Ix-Xini bay is now closed to the public for the duration of the production, but luckily it was still open for the first week of my stay on Gozo. It's one of my favourite places to swim on the island, the beautiful curved inlet is sheltered with a small but neat little beach. I can 100% see why the Jolie-Pitts chose it for their location, and to say I'm excited to see the film is a massive understatement!

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Gozo, Mgarr ix-xini, By The Sea Film, Brad Pitt Angelina Jolie, Travel Blogger

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New Year 2012 2013 Fashion Blogger Outfits

... Welcome 2013!

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful night over New Year Eve, whether you chilled out on the sofa or partied the night away. I spent the night at a house party and had lot's of fun!

I wanted to start 2013 with look back at a selection of my outfit posts of 2012. A lot of my favourite outfit pictures were taken on holiday. I was lucky enough to travel a lot in 2012! Visiting France and Malta a number times; I visited family in Normandy, and in the summer road tripped it round Southern France and on to Northern Italy - one of my favourite places. For relaxing family breaks I also spent a lot of time in Malta, home away from home!... the last few weeks have been particularly fab as, in the form of my sister and niece, a little bit of Malta has been visiting us here in the UK! :)

I'd love for 2013 to be just as good, if not better, when it comes to family time and travel! However, to say that 2012 was a pretty pants year for me work wise is kind of an understatement! There definitely needs to be some improvements in that department in 2013!!

I don't usually think about new years resolutions but I've actually set a few for 2013:

★ We have been talking about doing moving house for so long now! Once we've finished a bit of DIY, our house is going straight on the market!

★ 2012 has been the worse year for slacking! I'm seriously not getting any younger and it's show around my belly region! Exercise and cutting out the chocolate and fizzy drinks are high on my list for 2013!

★ I find blogging and interacting with my readers so enjoyable and relaxing - it really upsets me when I can't find time to blog! In 2013 I'm definitely going to be a more consistent blogger!

★ Be more organised! I've already got my 2013 diary - now I need to make sure I use it! However, I also need to keep my things organised and get out of the cycle of tidying, clearing out and organising my make-up (for example) only to mess it up and do it all again!

Did you make any New Years Resolutions for 2013? I'd love to hear them!

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I can't believe this is my first post of October! Bad blogger, bad bad blogger! These (nearly) three weeks have felt like ages, and definitely a lot longer than the week or so I mentioned in my Quick Update post! I've some good times, and some not so good times, while I've been away, so I thought a quick catch up post was in order.

I had an amazing, and much needed, holiday the last week of September. Back to the island of Gozo, which is soon becoming my second home, I visited my sister with my parents, boyfriend, cousin and cousin-in-law (such a thing?). Four of us stayed in the most amazingly restored traditional farmhouse, it had so many beautiful original features, as well as a great little pool for keepy uppies. We spent our days visiting beaches, swimming and eating... lots!

I'd planned a massive post on this holiday alone. However it was a disaster technology wise! I dropped my iPhone and it ended up getting water damaged. Sob! Although it's magically self-healing, it's still not working properly and I lost a lot of photos. I was kinda relying on my iphone, since my camera decided to give up and go into a coma half way through the week, it was pretty old! I managed to piece together the photo montage from the few pictures I salvaged from my iPhone and the few peeps but up on a facebook... the 500+ photos my boyfriend took, he managed to accidentally delete while updating to the new iPhone software! Disaster!

Since returning to the UK I've had to borrow my mums old 3G, it's been through the wars but at least it works! Just to be clear, my mum smashed this phone, not me. Now it just serves as an emergency back up. Really can't wait for the insurance to come through on mine though, I'm seriously missing the iPhone 4!

I spent the weekend in Birmingham last weekend, with my two besties. We were down for two wedding fairs. Yes, two! Although wedding fairs aren't particularly my cup of tea, I was there for my friend, and we had such a laugh! Charlotte is getting married next September, and I'm a bridesmaid! Exciting! The National Wedding Fair was way too hectic and over-the-top corporate, but The Designer Vintage Fair was fabulous. It gave Charlotte lot's of inspiration and I really enjoyed browsing the vintage table decorations, cupcakes, shoes and dresses. I even managed to locate some bloggers! If any of you are getting married I'd definitely recommend reading OMG I'm Getting Married and Rock N' Roll Bride, even if you're not getting married these are just really beautiful blogs!

In other news , work has been crazy busy (no change), and I've had a massive addiction to Game of Thrones! I can't wait for season two! I started watching it only because parts were filmed on Malta and Gozo... but I was soon hooked and watched the whole first season in about a week!! For any of you that have watched it you'll recognise these pictures, of the Azure Window, Gozo, and me and Chris stood at Mdina, Malta :)

So, that's about it from me! I've got a loads of post ideas so can't wait to get back into the swing of posting again. Thanks for sticking around the last few weeks, it's great you guys have continued to comment on my older posts too! See you back on here soon!