Up-front: my apologies for the terrible pun, which I found irresistible. I know, I’m a little simple-minded at times.
Especially after a pretty tough week. At least I’d taken a day off on Monday, the day after the wedding (we’d gone to bed at around 2 or 3 in the morning I think – that’s blurred, too!). Wednesday night I went to shoot the action of the “Champions League” of the Kempinski Hotel San Lawrenz. The first round of 5-a-side football (soccer) matches had taken place on Monday, which I’d missed. On Wednesday the kitchen, food & beverage and administration teams battled it out. And if I say battle, I mean it LOL! It was good fun to watch, but I tell you, I was glad not to be playing myself! Kick-off for the first game was around 10 pm – close to my usual bedtime – and I went home with a handful of trainees in tow just before 1 am. At that time, yet another match had only just started!! I must admit I didn’t feel that much better yesterday than the others (who had played!); you could tell by their funny way of walking, who had played. And I really don’t want to know what I would have looked like in their stead…
Vowing that I’d sleep early, I was in bed by 9.45 pm last night. I’d just fallen asleep when one of those infamous Gozo Summer night power cuts brutally silenced the fan and sent me to hell. At least that’s how it felt. I made about an hour tossing and turning and stewing, before I put 2 quilts on the floor under the window and made my bed there, hoping to catch enough draft to be able to sleep. Well I did fall asleep, eventually, but don’t ask me how I felt when I woke up…
So now the week is over. I’m sitting in full blow of a fan, sipping a glass of (chilled!!) red wine and contemplating what lies ahead: at 5 am I intend to wake up for a sunrise photo-shoot. Crazy, moi? Mais oui, biensur! LOL!
All this blabla, when all I wanted to show you were a couple of action pictures I took on Wednesday. At first, I took such blurred pics by mistake: I’d set the camera to multiple bursts of shots in an attempt not to miss the real action, but my flash didn’t manage to keep up. So I’d have one shot with flash, the next, a split-second later, without. And then I realised that I quite liked the effect… What do you think?
It was a great wedding (and anniversary party!) last night. Congratulations to Isabelle & Joseph!
I spent every waking hour (after waking up at around noon LOL!) to edit over 300 photos of last night. I had to do it today because a lot of people are waiting to see them… (Greetings to Australia!!).
On 26th July 1984 George and I tied the knot. Instead of telling you all about it, I’ll let a few photos do the talking… We are going to celebrate our silver wedding anniversary in style, by the way: at the wedding of hubby’s niece Isabelle! What a coincidence, eh? Isabelle was at our wedding, too – she’s the little girl with a blue dress, on her daddy’s arm (in the middle of the family photo in front of the church)!
The photohunt is still tickling me every now and then, so it’s just as well that I participate occasionally. I won’t go out commenting a lot, though, it’s just not possible, sorry. So the theme this week is Rock(s) – which is what tickled me. I love rocks. And living among them – some say on one of them – you never go long before you encounter a rock.
These boulders are found in Xwejni Bay, just behind Marsalforn. They really look like some giant just tossed them there out of boredom…
And then, of course, there’s the man that rocks… in thirty odd years I’d never have dreamt of coming as close to Roger Hodgson as I did last March! *huge happy smile*
By the way, there are hundreds of nice people from all over the globe taking part in the photohunt every week (so if I don’t play, nobody would really notice!); wouldn’t it be nice to have a few from Malta participate? Yeah I know, look who’s talking and all that. But still…
Frank, who commented on my “A Flower” post, caused me to dig out my old Genesis albums and wallow in memories… I first heard Genesis (at about the same time as Supertramp) when I was sixteen… they where my first encounters with progressive music, and I never looked back.
Firth of Fifth, which Frank mentioned in his comment, very strongly reminds me of the concert I went to in Berlin. I remember how impressed I was with Phil Collins, such an energetic bundle, it was almost comical how he jumped between his newly acquired post as lead vocalist (inherited from Peter Gabriel, of course) and his accustomed seat behind the drums. And his voice impressed me too. Of course he didn’t have Gabriel’s charisma, but that voice did make up for that. It was not too radically different from Peter Gabriel’s, but also had “something” in its own right. What a pity he had to go the way he went musically. Stuff like “You can’t hurry love” just makes me wanna cry, and for all the wrong reasons too… *cringe*
This video could well have been taken at the concert I saw, some time in the late 70s – my memory is sort of hazy as to when exactly that was. What can I say – old age does that to you!
A couple of months ago our team from work spent a very enjoyable Sunday in Malta, playing at being tourists. I’ll slowly give some life to my “Malta” category of photos, starting with Mdina. Most of them are pretty cliche… like the door-knocker, or the ubiquitous alley-shot. But hey, that’s Mdina!
I took this photo a couple of weeks ago, a cute and adorable little guy who was begging for morsels from diners, down in Marsalforn. I have a gut feeling that this little fellow was one of the poor creatures that died a painful and unnecessary death (see press release by the Gozo SPCA below).
If I had the time for keeping a dog, I might have taken him home and given him a bath and a cuddle. But sadly, a dog is about the last thing I can take care of right now.
I admit that having stray animals frequenting their establishments is not a desirable state of affairs for restaurant owners, and dining in the company of stray animals is not for everyone. But there are many ways to solve this problem without unnecessary cruelty.
There are no words strong enough to express the disgust I felt when reading this in my e-mail this afternoon. It’s making me sick to my stomach!
Press Release for the Gozo SPCA
15 July 2009
Just before 8am today, a member of the public reported to Gozo SPCA that there was a dog crying in a skip in Marsalforn. The Centre Manager, Betty Berry, immediately responded with the Gozo SPCA funded twenty four hour animal ambulance and requested the local Police to also be in attendance. On arrival with the Police, Betty Berry found a dog feed sack inside the skip in which there appeared to be a dog in severe pain. On removal from the skip, to their horror they discovered that the dog was on top of another dog inside the same sack. Examination of the second dog revealed it to be dead, but the death was recent since rigor mortis had not set in. The dog that was alive was in severe pain throwing its head back in agony, screaming and fitting. After covering its head to calm the dog, it was rushed to the Vet. The Vet diagnosed that the dog had been poisoned and was in the final throes of dying an agonising death, sadly the only option was to put it peacefully to sleep. Both dogs were small to medium in size, of terrier cross breed and looked to have been in quite good health prior to being poisoned.
Whilst making a report at the Victoria Police Station, Gozo SPCA was informed that an injured kitten had been handed in by a tourist, who had picked it up nearby; they thought it had been hit by a car. In fact it had a severe eye infection, which could result in the loss of one eye. Other than that the kitten, which is very tame, seems in good health and is eating well and is now under veterinary care at the Gozo SPCA shelter. This cruel abandonment may well have a very happy ending since the Police would like to have the kitten as a Station cat when it has fully recovered from its treatment.
Gozo SPCA personnel have been very shaken and deeply upset by these two cruel events following so closely on the dog found in a Cave last week. A spokesperson commented that from the recent vigorous discussions in the press there had been a lot of hurtful and ill informed criticism of the Gozo SPCA but the Society had also received many more messages of support. However they were very heartened to learn that there are a number of people in Gozo and Malta who are willing to re-home injured and sick dogs on a permanent basis. Gozo SPCA frequently pick up such dogs and would be very grateful if these people would leave their contact details either by calling the Centre on 21553769 or by email at info@spca-gozo.org and then something really positive will come from this very sad episode.
Gozo SPCA are vigorously pursuing the owner of the two dogs and urge the public to report any information that they may have either to the Society, or the Police, or the Animal Welfare Unit in Malta on 25905302.
Kudos to Betty and everyone else at the SPCA, who give a lot of their time, money and compassion to the four-legged inhabitants of Gozo! And I wish them luck in their pursuit of the sick person, who committed this despicable act!
Update… In the meantime, I’ve seen pictures on GozoNews, and it would appear that the above pictured dog was not a victim of this crime…
photohunt
