Hotel garden

I am so glad I have today free to explore this magic place.  Is it OK to indulge this kind of luxurious enjoyment from time to time?  At breakfast, I look out on the feluccas sailing lazily up the Nile.  I had the huge swimming pool to myself.  And when I went for an exploratory walk towards one end of the island, a delightful old man who reminded me strongly of the Haitian men who used to find their way to Bahamas when I worked there invited me for a tour of the hotel garden.  He showed me with pride the peas and onions and strawberries and I sampled the peas and strawberries.  Mangos and grapes are just starting to fruit.  As we went round I accumulated a little posy of basil, mint, roses, eau-de-cologne.

At the end of the garden, we came out on a basalt outcrop where I took the photo that heads the post.  There were lots of birds - small finches, egrets and a fan-tailed bird that I keep wanting to call a rufus something.  I have to look it up in my bird book when I get back to Australia.  Now in the heat of the day, I've set myself up in the lobby where there is free wireless.  In a moment I'll go and have another swim.

Tomorrow we go on a felucca trip and a tour somewhere but for now I am being indulgent!

Aswan

The journey to the airport yesterday evening was easy if I concentrated on what the guide was saying rather than on the scary roads!  We passed by a massive mosque and citadel which is an exact replica of another mosque somewhere.  Mosque building is quite complex and although they may all look the same, each country has it's own distinctive details.

At the airport, I was handed back down the line to the tall man who had met me off the plane from Malta.  He hurried me through procedures and left me with my boarding card at a security gate.  The domestic terminal in Cairo is as chaotic as it was when I flew up to Luxor last year.  I had plenty of time before the flight to Aswan and decided to finish my water in the outer hall before going through security.  Things got more and more crowded so I figured it was time to go through but when I had put my things through the scanner, the guard spotted my boarding card and told me to wait for another hour outside!  He reversed the machine so I could get back my gear.  By then, all the seats outside had been taken so I sat on the floor and read my book with French tourists going to Alexandria clamouring all around me.  Things calmed down after an hour or so and boarding was on time and painless.

The plane was crowded - small, older women twittering in a language I didn't recognise.  The one next to me was Christian (she crossed herself on take-off) and she asked the air steward if she could keep her cup and saucer as a souvenir which she carefully put away in her sick bag and stored it in her copious cabin baggage.  I had an impression of judgement from them all and they seemed to be accompanied by young men speaking the same language who acted like they owned the plane and the stewards indulged them.  When I started to feel tired and withdrawn, I stood up to get my book out of the locker and the woman sitting behind cowered in her seat and put her hand protectively over her cup as though I was going to contaminate it.

The heat was the first impression on arrival in Aswan although it was after 11.00 pm by this time.  There was no guide with my name on a board to meet me, but by the time I had picked up my yellow Sicilian suitcase (already showing signs of battery and dirt smears) I spotted a young man with the board of the travel company in Malta.  The guides here seem more casual than in Cairo and no-one offered to carry my bags so I trundled myself out to the waiting car.  We drove on excellent new roads with very little traffic.  I was expecting to drive straight to the hotel, but after a while we pulled up at a landing on the banks of the Nile and got onto a boat with a Nubian boatman.  There is a complete Nubian village up here and the community hold onto their own language.  

A magical mid-night cruise up the Nile and we landed at the hotel which is on an island.  By this time, I was enchanted by the lights and the massive reception area of the hotel.  My room also looked fine - spacious and with a balcony.  But when I woke up in the morning and looked out of the window, I was really captivated.  The photo is taken from my balcony!

Memphis

I finished the previous post in a rush and forgot to mention Memphis.  We called in here after Saqqara.  It is the original city of a united Egypt and home of the famous massive statue of Rameses 2 now lying down in a special museum with a walkway round it so you can look down on it from all angles.  It must have been so imposing when it was standing with the classic left foot forward pose.  Mustfa told me that the left foot forward symbolised the side of the heart.

The photo is of the Sphinx of Memphis with the market behind.  This was 19th Dynasty, 1341-1200BC

Saqqara and Memphis

Already my last afternoon in Cairo is nearly over and I still haven't completed my tourist descriptions!  I started Tuesday morning with a walk down the road to see if I could cut across to the Nile.  I couldn't!  The busy road is chaotic and dirty, homeless people sleep on old sofas at the side - one has set himself up with a fireplace in front of him.  Horses are tethered and dogs also sleep on the pavement.  There is some kind of butcher's place on an open second floor and a man is doing something to a huge hanging half carcass.   Other men are manipulating the second half of the carcass out of a truck onto their shoulders.  It looks clean and still has its organs inside.

Tuesday's tourist venture is to visit the oldest pyramid in the world at Saqqara.  This is the famous stepped pyramid created for King Zoser by the architect, Imhotp.  This is the first time the pyramid shape was created.  It is in six enormous tiers and there were workers renovating the lower tier.  The entrance has 42 columns with 42 statues of King Zoser in the niches.  These were all robbed except one that was re-incorporated into a later building on site.  

Once through the entrance colonnade we came into a huge open couryard.  Mustfa told me that once every 30 years there was a big festival and King Zoser had to prove his strength by putting on heavy clothes including the massive double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt and dance/run around the courtyard that also represented the extent of upper and lower Egypt.  The pyramid had many false doors to confuse tomb raiders.

We then walked over to the tomb and pyramid of King Titi and his servant, Mereruka.  The tomb has very clear hieroglyphs engraved into the rock showing Titi's cartouche and telling the story of his glorious achievements.  Mereruka's temple depicts his work as a tax collector.

Lunch was in an outdoor restaurant and consisted of a personalised smoking BBQ.  As we came in, a woman was working at a traditional oven and a little girl sat by the toilets with a goat.  Clearly set up for tourists but charming still.  Then a quick visit to old Cairo and the hanging church of St Mary built over a Roman tower.  In the entrance courtyard, there are lovely mosaics showing the journey of the Holy family into Egypt and Mustfa told me something of the history of the early Coptic Christians.  We also went to the crypt of the Holy Family under St Sergius church where they had lived.  Mustfa, who is Muslim, clearly appreciated this peaceful place and was happy to light candles before we wandered back through the bazaar to the bus.

I spent the evening in the roof top restaurant after a dip in the pool and made the mistake of having a pizza for dinner that kept me awake in the middle of the night and left me feeling a bit seedy today.  But I must go now because my guide is due to return and take me to the airport for my flight to Aswan.

Giza, perfume, papyrus and museums

Monday was a holiday here in Cairo.  When I went down for a rather boring breakfast, I was intrigued by the bread twists that appeared to have a painted hard-boiled egg in the centre.  Later, the guide explained to me that the streets were less chaotic because of the holiday that marks the end of winter.  That evening, I read in the English addition of the Egyptian Gazette that traditionally people paint eggs and go for picnics in the park.  I can remember doing this as a small girl in Malta.

For my tour, I had a driver, my guide, Mostfa, and a mini bus to myself.  We headed out for Giza, one of the three cities that make up the huge conglomeration of Cairo.  My first glimpse of the great pyramid of Cheops came as we were driving along the busy road leading to the tourist mecca.  Even in the setting of a congested metropolis it is impressive.  The first glimpse is of two complete pyramids, the second and smaller still with a smooth finish on its apex.  The massive free-standing structures were made by placing huge quarried slabs on top of each other, progressively moving in towards the apex.  Mostfa quoted statistics about numbers of blocks and workers which were too huge for me to understand.  At the side of the Cheops pyramid, he archaeologists found a huge pit with a boat in it.  This was the vessel for the sun to make its daily journey across the pyramid.  Now it is in a specially built museum next to the pyramid to preserve it and, I suspect, to extract more money from the tourists.

When we arrived at the car park there were already several tourist buses lined up.  There are three intact pyramids on this site, but many more have collapsed.  It looks stunning from the desert viewing point despite the number of visitors.  There are lots of camels and horses for hire and glimpses of them riding through the desert add to the Lawrence of Arabia feel.  We walk around the base of the Cheops pyramid and I went down into the chamber of one of the lesser queens.  At first I was on my own carefully picking my way down the very steep chute with metal struts and wooden handrails to stop you from sliding.  The chamber of course is long empty, robbed by fortune hunters who have become the stuff of legends and Hollywood movies.  This tomb was hewn out of the rock rather than constructed around the sarcophagus as happened in more important tombs.  Even so, most tombs, apart from Tutenkhamen, have been raided.

I had a few moments to find the small side chamber where the mummy was placed before I was literally descended upon by a busload of French tourists.  I started to panic a little as I waited at the side of the long chute whilst assorted sized people picked their way down.  As the small chamber filled up, I yelled up the shaft to stop and let me out so they would have more room at the bottom.

Perhaps to help me overcome the smell of fear in a crowded space, Mustfa then took me to the government perfume factory.  He emphasised that this was entirely educational and I shouldn't feel pressured to buy.  Since I never wear perfume, I thought this was unlikely anyway, even when he told me that he had seen Nicole Kidman at the factory and thought she was incredibly beautiful.  As soon as I walked in, I was taken to watch the glass-blower making the bottles.  It was a sure way to get me wanting to take something away with me.  I love the concentration of a craftsman working and felt privileged to share the moment when a fellow human being makes something of beauty.

Once a beautiful small bottle was sitting on the work bench, a delightful young woman claimed me and took me into a room surrounded by mirrored shelves with bottles of essence and glass containers all around.  She sat me down at a low table and asked if I wanted coffee.  I half-heartedly explained that I didn't use perfume so wouldn't know what I was smelling.  She smilingly gave me a list to tick off and began to explain to me the power of aromatherapy.  I was fascinated and came away with four sturdy bottles of essence or oil - frankincence, myrrh, heliotrope essences and sandalwood oil - four lovely small bottles that I will use later to give small gifts to people when I get back, and two candle holder oil burners.  It was a tourist experience that will remain with me.

Next we went to the papyrus factory where I learnt that the papyrus plant has a triangular stem which is one of the reasons it holds a special place in Egyptian culture.  The papyrus plant is the symbol of Lower Egypt whilst the lotus plant is Upper Egypt's plant.  Both plants are carved on Egyptian columns and help to distinguish local architecture from the Graeco-Roman constructions found particularly around Alexandria.  In the process of making paper, the outer skin is removed from the stems and the pith is sliced.  At this stage, as my demonstrator showed quite clearly, the slices are easily broken but once it is hammered and pressed to remove water it becomes stronger.  It is then soaked for several days to remove the sugar.  The strips are then woven and placed between two pieces of carpet to be pressed in the sun for several more days.  The longer it is left, the darker it becomes.  The final product is very strong and was used for beds and chairs as well as a surface for writing and painting.

Again, I bought two small pieces - one showing the papyrus plant and lotus plant and another of a tree with birds that I think represents the family.  Someone wrote my cartouche on this one.

After lunch which was buffet style with interesting salads and vegetables and very sweet desserts, we finished off the day with a trip to the museum.  This is huge and the Tutenkhamen room is amazing.  There were several mummy cases each originally placed within the other like Russian dolls, and four sarcophagus on the same principle.  I also went round the animal embalming room but I was getting too full of experiences to take much in.  I determined to return today to see more but as you can see, today has become a day of recording rather than experiencing.

On the way back to the hotel, I asked Mustfa to stop and let me buy some water and fruit for dinner.  Even though hotel prices are cheap by European standards, I still resent paying 7 Egyptian pounds for a small bottle of water when I can buy a large bottle outside for 2!  Back in my hotel room, I heard the call to prayer and when I looked out of the window over the rooftops there were nine kites flying, pigeons wheeling and the two Giza pyramids showed reddish in the sunset haze.

Cairo

I'm writing this in the hotel lobby overlooking a chaotic street that is an impenetrable block back from the Nile.  The photo is a view from my hotel room on the ninth floor.  The room looks out over the rooftops of endless, unfinished, brick apartment blocks.  This used to be agricultural land and the residents are poor farmers.  The apartments are expensive and people move in before they can afford to finish the outside.  The rooftops become scrap yards with makeshift wooden shanties, public laundries and goat pens.  When the morning haze lifts, I can see two of the pyramids at Giza rising above the highrise apartment buildings.

On Monday and Tuesday, I did the tourist things including visiting these pyramids and I will write about this in my next posts.  My trip over from Malta was smooth.  When I walked back through the Marsaxlokk market on Sunday after my previous post, my slight anxiety about getting everything sorted and put into boxes to leave with my landlord kept me from enjoying the feeling of nostalgia about my last visit as a resident of Marsaxlokk.  But everything went like clockwork and then I was in the Cairo airport looking at my name on a card held up by a tall Egyptian.  After Malta, it is a shock to find myself in a land of large people!

After my four week stay in Alexandria last year, there was a familiarity about the chaos of Cairo streets and the check-in process whereby the male guide sat me down in the lobby and dealt with the male receptionist.  My room was spacious with a small sitting area.  When I arrived there was a lot of noise coming from the pool bar area that is one flight up on the roof.  My heart sank at the sound of disco music and young laughter and I wondered about asking for a change of room.  But I switched on the TV, found a station with Egyptian pop music, found my earplugs as a precaution, and by the time I went to bed, silence had fallen!

Now at the end of my stay, I have worked out the wireless system in the lobby and am settled at a table looking out on the busy street life.  My guide will be here at 6.00 to take me to the airport for my flight to Aswan so I have a good slab of time to catch up with all my internet business.  Life is sweet.

Farewell to Marsaxlokk

I'm writing this in the cafe on the front at Marsaxlokk.  The weather has been glorious and as I walked past the fishing boats with my laptop one of the fishermen mending his nets offered me a boat trip.  There was a big post-Easter feast here on Wednesday and boat trips were part of the fair atmosphere all along the front together with tombola and horse cart rides.  The feast of St Gregory dates back centuries and originated as a thanks-giving pilgrimage but there are various ideas about what people were giving thanks for.  It could be for the ending of the Great Siege in 1565 or the release from the plague of 1519 or even further back to protection from a heavy storm in 1343.  Now it is a general thanksgiving at the end of winter and some brave people have their first dip of the year in the harbour.

I missed most of the day's activities on Wednesday as I had to take two cases over to be stored at my cousin's place in Sliema.  I am overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I have accumulated in the six months I have been here and it looks like I will have things scattered all over Malta whilst I am away in Australia.  Today I'm still sorting things out in the flat and will be leaving three boxes with my landlord as well as my pushbike.  Yesterday we went up to Valletta to sort out the final payments on my water and electricity.  The office was crowded and we had to wait with a queue number for an hour or so.  Joseph, my landlord, gave me a lovely little candle holder as a going away present and it will be one of the first things to decorate my new flat in Valletta when I return.

I stayed on in Valletta to go to a lunch time concert at Manoel theatre.  There is a Dutch orchestra visiting this week for the String Festival and their bass clarinet player gave a challenging performance of pieces from 20th century composers.  The instrument makes a rich range of sound and my favourite piece had the tones of didgeridoo with the feel of jazz.  

Afterwards, Valletta was glowing in the sun as I strolled round the bastions overlooking Grand Harbour on my way to meet someone who already lives in the block of flats that I am moving into in January.  Olive briefed me well about the etiquette associated with living harmoniously in such a large block of flats and I am glad that she will be a neighbour when I return.

On the previous Saturday, Valletta was colder when I visited with my cousin and her daughter.  We came across from Birgu by dhaighsa (I made a mental note not to ask for the harbour cruise rather than the direct crossing again - it costs twice as much and doesn't go much further than going straight across the harbour from Birgu).  But the walk up from the Customs house drop-off is always interesting and we cut across to one of the band clubs on Republic street because Helen wanted to try rabbit and chips.  I then left them to explore and walked down to Fort St Elmo where Heritage Malta were offering member tours of the re-opened War Museum.

Sunday, we planned to stroll through the market at Marsaxlokk and then jump on the double decker bus for the South tour.  I still haven't made it to the Limestone Heritage and I thought this might be my chance but it wasn't to be.  Perhaps because of the weather which was threatening rain, the bus never showed up so we changed to plan B and got the ordinary bus up to Tarxien and went to the temple.  I enjoyed having visitors and it was fun to test out some of the things I have learnt about Malta this time.

Some friends have just dropped in to the cafe so I'll post this and hope I can find a cafe once I am traveling.

Easter in Malta

The weather has turned cold again and on Easter Monday we are having rain and wind here in Marsaxlokk.  Yesterday the boats were tossing on their moorings and the tourists at the market were complaining because it is warmer in England than Malta at the moment.  

I have had my cousin, Jennifer, and her daughter, Helen, visiting me from Luton and we have enjoyed three full days.  The photo that heads the post was taken at the Good Friday procession in Zejtun.  My good neighbours, who live in the flat below me, had given me the best places to go on the different days of Easter.  Zejtun is well known for the stunning costumes and the breadth of the Christ story told through the procession so we walked up through the valley from Marsaxlokk and arrived at the church soon after the parade had started to emerge.  We were able to locate the church by the sound of the clackers from the steeple.  On Good Friday, the bells are not used.

The square and street outside the church were packed and after getting our bearings from one side of the church door where we could just see the plumes of the Roman centurions over the heads of the crowd we decided to walk around the band to the other side.  The pavement was so full that we were struggling to find our way through.  We paused momentarily opposite the church doors and bought a pastizzi and then decided to cut off down a side street and see if we could find a better spot further down the processional route.

As you can see from the photo of the garden of Gethsemane, we found a great spot and were able to see the procession from the beginning.  It must have taken two hours for everyone to pass us and the costumes were very beautiful and represented a whole range of biblical characters.  The children were particularly delightful and as with carnival they gradually shifted from looking pious and shy at the beginning to mischievous and bold as the procession wound on.  One small boy lead a shoat and the little girl at his side had a cage with white doves.

The people carrying the heavy statues have a different technique from the bearers in Catania for the feast of St Agatha and adopt a rhythmic, wide-spaced stride that they coordinate with each other.  They have no padding on their shoulders for the poles and it was clear that some of the carriers were very tired even by the time they reached our point in the route.  The white robed figures were occasionally spelled by stand-ins from the crowd.

We had a bit of a challenge to find the bus stop after the parade had passed because Zejtun was closed to traffic but eventually we tracked it down and found a bus for the short trip back to Marsaxlokk.

For the rest of the weekend we explored Birgu, Valletta and Tarxien and I'll write about that in my next post.  This might be the last day I have internet access at home so my next post might be from the cafe on the front at Marsaxlokk where I used to post from when I first arrived.

Sliema

I called my previous post Living in Malta because I was going to write something about how my view of the world has shifted since I made the decision to base myself here.   But writing about the San Gwann area lead me in a different direction.  We'll see what happens in this post.

Most of the things I am doing just now are related to my return to Malta in 2010.  Both the conference at Dragonara and the workshop in Sliema that I'll write about here are associated with finding some part-time work when I come to live in my flat in Valletta.

Malta Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language advertised a seminar/workshop to be held at IELS in Sliema.  There are many English language schools in Malta and they each identify themselves with a series of letters like this.  I found it was quite confusing when people at the workshop introduced themselves and said where they worked with a string of letters.  Maybe I have just got out of the ways of the paid workforce!

The seminar was offering several different workshops from which we all chose two.  I put my name down for a session lead by Daniel Xerri called 'Using Literature in the EFL Classroom' and another by Jean Sciberras titled 'Using songs in the classroom.'

The literature class was theoretical with some activities thrown in and I found it very useful.  I used a short story by a Greek author writing about Alexandria when I was there studying for my TEFL qualification.  The class had worked well but I felt I could have linked it more strongly to language acquisition  and this is what the workshop offered.

I expected the song workshop to be about singing but found it focussed on using popular song lyrics to help with language acquisition.  The session was run as though it was a TEFL class.

The seminar was a very good way of starting to feel my way into the sector.  When it concluded at lunchtime, I had arranged to meet my cousin in a popular Sliema cafe just around the corner on the front.  This is the regular Saturday morning haunt for Doris and at first I couldn't spot her in the crowd.  She was squashed in around a tiny circular table with several other women friends.  When I squeezed in to join them, it became clear that this was the place to be to catch up with Sliema gossip.  As I tucked into my fruit tart for lunch, Doris was greeted by several other women as they strolled through the pavement cafe and everyone stopped for a chat.

The party broke up around 2.30 (Doris had been there since 11.00am) and I walked across the road to wait for the ferry across the harbour to Valletta.  It was another lovely day and I sat up on the bow for the short trip across Marsamxetto.  Walking up from the landing, I felt that the Valletta streets were starting to feel like home territory.

The photo that heads the post was taken from the Sliema promenade when I walked around from Spinola the previous day.

Living in Malta

The photo is of the rockpool at Paceville where I taught myself to swim when I was six years old.  It is almost the only thing in this area that still looks the same.  I was there on Friday when I went to a conference at Dragonara on the point between my rockpool and St George's Bay.  You can see what is now Dragonara Casino in the background.

I caught the bus from Valletta to San Gwann but arrived late for the conference because I got on the bus that went for a trip around the village rather than going down into Paceville so I stayed on for the ride and then walked from the top end of Paceville.  

The conference was about the Further and Higher Education Strategy 2020 and launched a report commissioned by the government.  When I arrived, the large conference room at the Westin Dragonara was full with men in grey suits.  I found myself a space on the back row after picking up my conference bag that contained the report.  I missed the opening but was there to hear Mr Jacques Sciberras go through the report, Professor Juanito Camilleri, Rector of the University of Malta, critique the report mostly in terms of action and Dr Dominic Orr speaking from the perspective of EU students.  

On the way out to morning tea, I overheard one of the few women who were there bashing the ear of a male colleague about how the private sector, where she located herself, could not afford to implement the strategies recommended in the report.  I suspect that most of the women there were from the private sector but I have no way of knowing because a gender break-down is noticeably missing from the report.

It was a beautiful day, and after sampling the white bread tuna sandwiches with crusts cut off I decided to slip away from the second session which promised a full series of speakers from the sector.  I set off to walk around the shoreline to Sliema and that is where I came across my rock pool.

I wasn't sure if I would be able to walk around the rocks any longer because of all the development so I asked a woman who was walking her dog.  She explained to me how I would have to walk around the marina and I might have to go through the Hilton hotel if a gate wasn't open but I should be able to get onto Spinola promenade.

Walking over the rocks I noticed a lot of fossils that I was not aware of as a child and the square tower where strange men used to hang out is still there.  There used to be a rubble road going round the coast with a fortified wall that had strange tunnels running through underneath that were just big enough for a small child to crawl through but this road is now closed off and I'm not sure what is going on there now.

I walked around the Portomaso marina wall and around the twin harbours, one for luxury speed boats and the other for yachts.  The development of apartments here is huge but at least you can walk around and look at the boats.  At the far end, a gate was open and I was able to skirt another massive hotel and walk past the restaurants on the edge of Spinola Bay.  In the Spinola area, several of the fishing boats have a curious rounded stern that is different from the boats at Marsaxlokk.

After that I decided to follow the promenade around until Sliema where I jumped on a bus to head back to Valletta and Marsaxlokk.  My cousin in Sliema wasn't home so we arranged by phone to meet the following day when I was due to go to another workshop this time in Sliema.  I'll write about that in my next post.

April in Malta

I took the photo on the last day of March as I walked the cliff path between Marsaxlokk and Birzebuggia.  I haven't been along there for a while and it looks great at this time of year.

I have been caught up in a flurry of new routines and activities.  The establishment of our family site has taken more and more of my time as I enjoy feeling connected to the different members of our clan scattered all over the world.  A year ago, I could not have imagined that there were so many of us or that we had such an extensive photographic record of our diverse histories and lives.  Having the website changes how I think about family support because it means that I no longer have to rely on physical proximity to feel connected to people I love.

This week I also started work on the Queensland Writers' Year of the Novel Online course.  It has made me realise that if I want to complete my first novel, I will have to stop playing at being a writer and start to be a bit more disciplined.  I want to keep this blog going as I move into the next phase of my life but it will need to drop a little down the list of priorities.  As I travel back to Australia, I'll try and post whenever I can.  When I get back, I'll review the motivation to continue after my year of travel.  I am so glad that I have this record of the journey I've taken and I think it will be a worthwhile project to continue perhaps with a different emphasis.

There are three huge projects for me in the coming year - the novel, my Australian choir's planned trip to Cuba to sing at a choir festival there, and my move to live in Malta.  It's going to be a very full year!

Over the past few weeks, I've found myself saying more frequently that something will have to be left until I come back to Malta next year.  I decided not to go on the Ramblers' walks or the Arts and Cultural tours or the Geographic expeditions.  It's a kind of withdrawal, a preparation for leave-taking.  I still go up to Valletta to the concerts at St Catherine's but I usually combine that with walking down to my new flat and exploring around the block where it is located.  

There are also two conferences this week both associated with the part-time work in TEFL teaching that I'm hoping to take on when I return.  On Friday there is a conference about the Further and Higher Education Strategy 2020 at The Dragonara Resort in St Julian's and on Saturday, a workshop run by Malta TEFL in Sliema.

On Monday, I did make it up to Valletta for the Historical Society's lecture on "Medical aspects of the Great Siege".  It was held in the Palazzo Parisio where the Ministry for Foreign Affairs are housed and it was another excellent presentation in the Historical Society's series.  The small hall was full to capacity once again and I was glad I got there early to get a front row seat and check out the building which I haven't been into before.  The lecturer was a medical doctor and I liked the approach that he took which was to compare the knights preparations for war with the planning strategies needed for any major confrontation such as the 2nd World War.

I'll have to miss the next lectures in the series but I'll be looking out for Historical Society events when I return!