Right now I feel… hot

Last night and this morning I took around two hundred photos at our village feast. That’s remarkable because I never venture outside the territory of our home on any of the festa days. I’m just not keen on crowds and noise and all that. It’s rather difficult to escape the audible bits and pieces of a village feast, though, especially if its taking place practically on your doorstep. And why on earth they let off petards at eight in the morning is utterly beyond me; I have a feeling that if you ask “them” they will probably be just as clueless. I guess that’s a characteristic of traditions. But just for the record: I think it’s a despicable tradition, which has no raison d’être whatsoever!

Back to topic…

Since this is the first Summer that I have a real good camera in my possession, I couldn’t not go out there and mingle with the crowds; there was this uncontrollable itch to snap away, come hell or high water! Here you should know that the Sunday morning march is (traditionally!) characterised by revellers’ extreme alcohol consume - and flying water-filled balloons. While I don’t really want to know how much suffering follows the ingestion of whole bottles of Gellewza Frizzante, which seems to be the “in” choice of under-age Gozitan drinkers, the habit of drenching the crowds in water is probably rather sensible, given the glaring summer sun at noon, which purportedly is reserved for mad dogs and Englishmen.

Well, I’m happy to report that I had a ball with my cam and miraculously stayed dry, too. Unfortunately it’s true that dazzling daylight causes washed-out colours, but that can’t be helped, and I’m quite pleased with my shots anyway. However, only a handful passed my own criticism and will make it to my photoblog; but all of them can be seen on slide.com (or see my previous post!)

That’s all folks. I’m in dire need of a shower now, and then I really will put up my feet and enjoy the last few weekend hours. (Aren’t you glad you’re spared my whingeing about being overworked?? )

Have a good week everyone - hope you’ll manage to stay cool!

Here are the reasons why I haven’t visited any photohunters yet (hope to be catching up a little tomorrow!):

Just coming up for some air - and to finally get my  Photohunt post in. Theme this week is Pointed; I chose one natural pointed thingy (ok, they call it cactus aloe!!) and a man-made one. The cactus was snatched from a dinner table at the hotel (yep, it really is tinier than you’d think!), while I encountered the church on my boat trip on Frankfurt’s Main river last month. Hope you’ll like them.

In case anyone’s been missing signs of life from me: it’s been a helluva week. It’s not just blogging I’m talking about but e-mails too. I really don’t know how friends still bother contacting me - but I assure you I am very, very grateful for it. Do keep them coming, I promise I’ll respond as soon as I can.

I can’t begin to recount what I’ve had thrown at me. Days run into each other in a blur… I might tell you all about it tomorrow - then again I might just put my legs up, make the terrain around my PC a no-go area, and not tell you a single thing. I’ve just about had enough of computer keyboards and screens. Not to mention the bloody heat. We’re expecting a heatwave to kick in as from tomorrow. Not nice. Not nice at all!

Oh well. Have a great weekend everyone. If you’re in the US of A, you’re enjoying a long one, too - wish y’all a belated happy Independence Day!

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Update…

*Blush* I think you (TNChick& Patricia) are right. And I have proven, once again, that I’m a total loss when it comes to botanics (you could ask all the biology teachers of my long school years; they’d agree unanimously!). Nearly half a century old and I’m still learning new stuff. Today’s lesson: not everything that stings is a cactus…

Glad to let y’all know that I’ve recovered from last night’s champagne aftermath. I’m sure it was the fizzy stuff that made my head ache so badly today. After posting my photohunt entry (see last post further down), I went to nap on the sofa and was almost restored to normal by 4 pm… A whole day went to waste, but I’d say it was worth it.

It was the MHRA’s 50th anniversary gala dinner that hubby and I went to last night, invited by my general manager. The venue was the Barakka Gardens in Valletta on the fabulous backdrop of Grand Harbour - a breathtaking view! It was a great night out. We even had our picture taken; hubby might kill me for putting it into my blog for all to see - but boy, did he look smashing!!

Our hotel had a table of 10 - and there were no less than four countries gathered: Malta, Germany, Turkey and the Philippines. I often marvel at the internationality of my workplace, which comes naturally in an international hotel group. Last week our department (Sales & Marketing and Reservations) went out for dinner, and I’m tempted to think we must be holding some kind of record in the number of nations working in one office together: Malta, Germany, Bulgaria, Russia, Lebanon and - if you count our GM’s office that’s next to ours - Turkey. Oh yes, and Melissa is half Australian - but sadly she just left us. (Gonna miss you heaps, girl!!)

Mazen from Lebanon is our reservations manager; he has a wonderful sense of humour - and can even laugh freely about the silly, politically rather incorrect jokes that surface from time to time because of his Arabic origin. Coming to think about it, it actually might have been him who started it!

Sometimes I imagine that wars could be prevented if everyone in this world was made to work in truly international environments. Well, at least those wars that are started because of differences in belief and culture. Working together is a great way of discovering that a lot of sentiments are the same for everyone, no matter where they were born. Hunger for power, on the other hand, is universal and will unfortunately continue to lead to battles…

Right now I feel… Sickly

Bright is this week’s photohunt theme. As I’m battling a whopper-sized hangover from a wonderful gala dinner we attended last night in Malta, bright sunshine is about the last thing I’d like to see right now! The photo was taken at Ramla Bay on the morning of my last birthday.

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The sad end of Fussy’s story overshadowed what should have become a really nice week - an almost celebratory one… I hesitated to put up this post but it’s only today that I have the time for it. And maybe it would take the mourning for a cat a bit too far?

One “news” bit I’ve been doing my best not to mention on my blog - lest I’d jinx it - is Deborah Bonham’s new album, Duchess. It was released in the USA yesterday, and unless things have changed in the last minute, the centrefold of its booklet should be a photo I took of her gig in Malta last year! Peter Bullick, guitarist of Deborah’s band, contacted me after seeing the pic on my blog. I’m very excited about this!

Another little success of my photographic endeavours is the audio information board that was inaugurated this morning at Independence Square in Victoria:

A few months ago Roderick Spiteri of i-squared was looking for photos of Victoria and found them - yep! through my blog. The board carries five photos of mine, and my name. Quite nice, eh?

I don’t think I should quit blogging any time soon…

Right now I feel… Sad

Preparing to go to work, I took the car out of the garage yesterday morning and was shocked to find Fussy lying in the shrubs by the wall of our drive-way. She was breathing but didn’t react to me at all - very unusual for her, she was one fussy little girl, all the time moving.

As I was already running late, I had to leave her but phoned the SPCA as soon as I got to the office and was promised they’d pick her up as soon as possible. Today I have a day off, and first thing in the morning I took two large bags of cat food and a tiny measure of hope to the SPCA. I thought, maybe it hadn’t been as bad as it looked. But she was already dead by the time they had come for her. Apparently hit by a car - which I find so hard to believe; I’ve never seen her venture outside onto the road. But then, there’s always a first time, isn’t there?

To make it all the worse, for me, is that lately Felix - the other stray who “adopted” us - had succeeded in declaring our garden her own territory and keeping Fussy away. Last Sunday, however, a very hungry Fussy paid us a visit. She had a hurt leg and looked awfully scruffy. I was still in my bed clothes, so I quickly gave her food and went to get dressed. By the time I returned to clean her up a few minutes later, she was gone and didn’t come back before I found her yesterday. Thinking that I could have done something to prevent this makes me feel so very sad. There really wasn’t that much I could have done, but still.

Strange: I blogged about her for the first time exactly two years before she died…

(For the photohunt please scroll down to the next post)

FAULTY MEMORY

Shit. I just knew I wanted to go to Victoria this morning. Only, from the time I woke up until right now, I couldn’t put my finger on the reason. So I puzzled at my photohunt post and got a little lost in some of the other participants’ posts, before it suddenly hit me with full force: at 11 am Chasing Pandora had a gig at Arkadia, and you probably won’t believe me if I told you that I could hardly wait for today to arrive, since I received their e-mail last Thursday. I’m shattered, (a) because I missed it and (b) because my brain seems to be packing in, slowly but surely. My forgetfulness is reaching worrisome proportions; I just can’t believe it!!

I’m hopeful that my memory-trouble is only down to all the stuff my head is filled with at work. More often than not I come home in the evening and can’t for the life of me remember everything I’ve done during the day. My duties are rather wide-spread (that’s a workplace in Gozo for you!) and I’m multitasking most of the time, because everything is urgent. So yes, I’m hoping that my mind is simply filled to capacity, and that it’s perfectly normal to forget things that I’m looking forward to…

LUGGAGE RANT

This rant was a long time coming. Nearly every time I travel, one of my suitcases bites the dust. To-date I was inclined to put it “merely” down to careless luggage handlers, although I’ve heard plenty of stories where valuable items had disappeared from locked cases. This time I had a small case - hand-luggage size - with me that was filled with ca. 15 kg of brochures and magazines. The zips were secured with one of those little locks, not so much because I feared the material would be stolen, but rather to prevent the zips from opening and the contents spilling out. Maybe the guy who forced open the zipper (because the lock was too sturdy) expected to find bars of gold, I don’t know. But I’m mightily pissed off!

And on the subject of careless handlers: one of the artists exhibiting at the opera house in Frankfurt found two of his sculptures (which had been carefully packed) damaged. Another had one of his cases missing altogether.

Which, of course, is another topic you usually hit sooner or later during a conversation revolving around flying: “lost” luggage! I put “lost” in inverted commas because of my latest experience upon my return to Malta. Moments after finally spotting the above mentioned battered piece across from me on the other side of the carousel, I was kind of dumbfounded to see a Maltese man lugging it onto his trolley. Just like that, without even the slightest hesitation and totally ignoring my shouts of protest (he was standing merely 4 or 5 metres away). After I managed to elbow my way through to him, he handed it to me without further ado but with a big grin on his face. His behaviour rendered me speechless, words just wouldn’t come to me!

I appreciate that a lot of bags and cases look alike - that’s why you’d normally do a double-take or even two before laying claim to your baggage. Or mark it with a bright green ribbon as I did. I’m still shaking my head when I think of that situation. Are there people making a living like that? And considering how easy it is to walk away with what’s not yours: how much luggage is really lost??

SPCA GOZO - 2009 CALENDAR

I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago: the 2009 calendar published by the SPCA Gozo is available for sale now! It only costs € 4, and if you buy one, you don’t only get a lot of beautiful photos of adorable pets, but also one of Simba but also give a helping hand to the volunteers that run the SPCA with funds that are always on the short side! Oh well, and of course a cute pic of yours truly’s tom cat Simba is definitely an added bonus!!

21st June - SUMMER’S HERE!

29°C (84.2°F) - nothing to write home about when you happen to write from Gozo. It just occurred to me, as I’m sitting in the sweltering heat of my home office, that after two unemployed summers I’m now back in the rat-race of the office-working population. Which is why I shall now do what office workers tend to do on weekends: get away from the desk and enjoy my out-door “living room”!

Happy summer solstice!

Now this week’s photohunt theme is very much to my liking: My star sign is pisces, which just seems logical: I love Water so much that I get fidgety when I’m away from it for too long. One of the reasons why I ever considered living on this little rock called Gozo is that there is so much more sea than land.

If you go through my photoblog, you’ll find it’s full to the brim with all kinds of water images - but you should see my unpublished archives!! It was rather tough to narrow down my choice for the photohunt, but I did decide in the end, voilà:

The last pic is an edited version of a photo I had already posted on the photoblog a while back, a fact I hadn’t noticed before uploading it. What can I do, it’s one of my favourites because it looks so vivacious!

Photohunt hostess TNChick asked the participants this week to state for how long they’ve been participating in the meme. Well, I’m just a few weeks shy of my first photohunt anniversary: my first photohunt post appeared on 31st July 2007. Time flies when you’re having fun eh?

I hope I’ll find some time today or tomorrow for a “real” blog post. In the meantime: wish y’all a fabulous weekend!

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