Here in Malta we've had more heavy rain this week. Today is sunny but still cold. I've got my washing out on the roof but it is very windy and I think I just heard my drying rack get blown over.
This post is about my day in Valletta on Thursday. The photo was taken some time ago in the armoury in Valletta.
When I got off the bus at the terminus outside Valletta it had just started to rain. When it rains hard in Malta, you start finding abandoned, fold-up umbrellas all over the streets because they just can't cope with both the wind and the rain. I was glad of my sailing wet weather gear that I was wearing because my umbrella was hard to manage and started dripping on me very quickly.
Before the lunch time concert at St Catherine of Italy, I decided to duck into the water services office to find out about the new water/electricity bill I had just received. It looked like they were charging me again for the first bill I had paid a couple of weeks ago. This time, the office wasn't so crowded and I got attended to as soon as I took my number. I had to wait for an hour last time! It looks like the flurry of enquiries resulting from the raising of the tariffs has started to subside. The young woman on the desk was as courteous as last time and quickly explained that they had made a mistake and when I go to pay (I have 45 days grace) I should let them know.
The concert at St Cat's was a programme I had heard before - Colour me... a spectrum of Baroque vocal music with Ramona Zammit Formosa on harpsichord and piano and the young soprano Dorothy Baldacchino. I learnt that the piece from the opera 'La Bella Molinara' by Giovanni Paisiello is about an old lady who regrets that she can no longer feel love! Another song, 'Pursue thy conquest, love' from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, I already knew because some 30 years ago I choreographed a production of this opera at Townsville College of Advanced Education in Australia. Dorothy sang it at an incredibly fast pace that left me breathless!
When I came out it was still raining and I hurried round the corner into the Auberge d'Italie to see an exhibition by Richard Saliba called 'Vanishing landscape'. He has managed to capture the rural landscapes I have become familiar with as I walk through the valleys with Malta Ramblers. The artist has a website www.richardsaliba.com
By then, it was time for lunch and I walked through the rain over to the Valletta band club on Republic street where I read the paper and enjoyed my rabbit with a glass of red wine. By then, it was still raining and I still had a couple of hours before I was due at a travel agency to confirm my tour to Catania in the first week in April. I couldn't quite remember where it was so I wandered off through the wet streets dropping in to a shop to buy some warm pyjamas that were on sale and lingering in the covered arcades.
By the time I was due at the agency, it was still raining and I hadn't found it so I asked two women who were hurrying through one of the streets parallel to Merchants street in Valletta's neat grid system with their umbrellas up. They just happened to be going on the same tour as me so I accompanied them! A charming old man from Gozo will be leading the tour and he offered to translate the brochure itinerary into English for me and post it. It arrived this morning so I'm all set for February 2nd when I fly off for four days at the feast of St Agatha.
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