Days of my Life... in Gozo!

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2

Photo Hunt - Party
2008-03-01 15:20:00
I’m afraid this isn’t going to be a proper Photo Hunt from my side today. As much as I liked last week’s theme, this time I’m lost… I haven’t attended a Party for ages, and I probably won’t have one for a while yet. I was just about giving up on getting an entry done, when I strolled through our garden today and noticed the abundance of snails that are feasting on our poor plants and flowers. You must know, it’s a riot out there, everything came to life while I wasn’t looking. Must get my life back, and quickly too! Well, I know this is stretching the Party theme by at least a mile, but with some imagination I’m sure you could hear them cheering and making merry… Technorati Tag: PhotoHunt

Mixed Bag on Sunday
2008-02-24 10:48:00
Yesterday morning I had titled my post The long way home, but somehow forgot another couple of episodes which made the way seem so much longer than it already was. They’d been in my head at the start of the post and then evaporated… Since it’s old hat by now, I only mention one of them, because it really puzzled me… I’m not sure where exactly our plane came to park (is it called parking when it comes to planes??), but the length of the bus ride to the terminal made me wonder whether we were going straight to Cirkewwa - which unfortunately, we weren’t. I never knew that MIA was that big. Actually I used to make fun of the fact that they herd everyone from the plane into a bus when we could have simply walked the few metres to the terminal. Hmm. Perhaps that was the purpose of the exercise - showing us how huge our airport really is? Well, probably not. Excuse me for being silly. Hmm. A minor issue: there’s a hot drinks machine in the Gozo Ch...
More About: Sunday , Mixed

Photo Hunt - Wooden
2008-02-23 16:05:00
Nice Photo Hunt theme this week: Wooden . I could take dozens of pics fitting right in; there’s so much wooden stuff in our home, to start with: we love wood! Actually, I wouldn’t know where to start! When I came home at 1 am this morning, I found a little package waiting for me that had arrived while I was away. Carin sent me her early birthday greetings (there’s still a couple of weeks to go!!), and there was this little key-chain that I immediately knew would be my first photohunt pic for this week. Thank you Carin!! The next one is the Davidoff Lounge of the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in Munich, the very comfortable and pleasant smoking area of the hotel. The walls’ panels are wooden, as is most of the furniture. Just on the side: the smoking lounge of the Kempinski Gravenbruch is even more beautiful. But it was always buzzing with guests, so I refrained from taking out the camera… Unfortunately the photo didn’t come out very well, becaus...

The long way home…
2008-02-23 14:20:00
Right now I feel… AngryWell, I’m not really angry anymore now… but I was hopping mad last night! If you know Frankfurt’s airport you’ll know it can be intimidating, especially if you’re travelling on your own. But if you fly out of Frankfurt and happen to be booked on an Air Malta flight, things get… hmm, how shall I put it? Surreal hits it pretty well, I suppose. Have you ever had a dream that starts out astonishingly “normal” (meaning close to reality) before slowly deteriorating and starting to get weird undertones? That’s how my journey across Frankfurt’s airport felt. At the start there was a comfortable 15-minute ride with the hotel’s courtesy bus. I arrived with plenty of time to spare and my plan was to check in my suitcase as soon as possible, bring the passport check behind me and then enjoy a couple of hours in pleasant surroundings, have something to eat, watch the world go by… Aaah, the stuff...
More About: Home , Long

On the road…
2008-02-21 12:02:00
Right now I feel… TiredMonday till Wednesday whizzed by in a hurry that amazes me, especially as this surely can’t have been a case of all the fun causing time to fly. After breakfast everything’s becoming a blur… 01 drive to appointments 02 cruise endlessly for a parking space 03 attend your actual appointment 04 go to 01 (loop until end of day) Yesterday was particularly tiring, as after two appointments we drove about 250 km to a third one, then on to Frankfurt - another 200 km of Autobahn. I arrived at my hotel Kempinski Gravenbruch - beautiful!) after dark which was a shame. For a change I have a room with a view, overlooking the lake, but I couldn’t see it… This morning I waited impatiently for dawn to arrive, only to find out that the lake was covered in thick fog. Figures, eh? It’s just my typical kind of luck! But it’s still a beautiful view: Gotta run again… Talk later (hopefully)!
More About: Road , On The Road , The Road

February Sunrise
2008-02-01 12:10:00
Right now I feel… CreativeYep! Have you noticed? January is a gonner! Today I finally took the day of leave which had been booked for the week before Christmas and had to be cancelled due to a sudden rise in workload… And what did I do? I set my alarm for 5 am - and promptly didn’t hear it. Then, at 6 am, I literally jumped out of bed and into my clothes, grabbed my camera, tripod and car keys - and off I went eastwards for the sunrise. There is something exhilarating about being out there at such early hour, with no-one (well, hardly anyone!) else around. I must admit that I was quite happy when one lone guy with a fishing rod showed up, adding a bit of life to the scenery. But unfortunately a lot of shots I took didn’t come out as expected, which is why I decided to hide them inside a slide-show. There’s still an awful lot for me to learn, but I’m already looking forward to my next sunrise shoot!
More About: Sunrise , February

I got tagged. Last year…
2008-01-31 20:06:00
Hmmm… better late than never LOL! I just caught up with a few blogs I haven’t visited for ages (and that’s no exaggeration!!) and found out I’d been tagged by Jean Paul way back in the beginning of December. Oh dear… The rules of the tag: - Pick your birth month. - Bold the 5-10 that best apply to you. - Copy to your own journal, with all twelve months. - Tag 12 people from your friends list. My birthday month is March, so let’s see what we have here: MARCH: Attractive personality. Sexy. Affectionate. Shy and reserved. Secretive. Naturally honest, generous and sympathetic. Loves peace and serenity. Sensitive to others. Loves to serve others. Easily angered. Trustworthy. Appreciative and returns kindness. Observant and assesses others. Revengeful. Loves to dream and fantasize. Loves traveling. Loves attention. Hasty decisions in choosing partners. Loves home decors. Musically talented. Loves special things. Moody. Oops, I found a dozen of attribute...
More About: Tagged , Year

Wordless Wednesday
2008-01-30 19:09:00
Right now I feel… Tired    Visit other Wordless Wednesday participants!

Mixed Bag on Monday
2008-01-28 21:47:00
Right now I feel… CoolShock, horror… I’m blogging on a Monday ?! Thing is, I finished early with my chores, and also feel greatly relieved of a certain kind of pressure. Will give details when the time is ripe for it. Suffice it to say, a real boulder fell off my shoulder this morning, and as a result I’ve had the first day in ages without that debilitating headache that’s been making me miserable for days on end. Strange how the body responds to your feelings… I thought it was time to say a few words that don’t concern myself and my struggles. One of my favourite blogs has been Hesitant Scribe by Lisa Ratcliffe, which I had originally found through Caroline Smailes‘ In Search of Adam. As y’all know, I hadn’t done an awful lot of blog hopping in the last few weeks of 2007, and when I went back to read Lisa’s blog I was in for a shock. She had been diagnosed with cancer while I - literally - wasn’t looking! It...
More About: Mixed

Morena for Eurovision Song Contest!
2008-01-27 18:16:00
The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) fever almost bypassed me, as usual. Last night we heard the finalists’ 8 songs during dinner, and I couldn’t say that any of them knocked me off the chair. But - and I think I said this a year ago - the Eurovision style music isn’t really my thing anyway. The ESC is being taken terribly serious in Malta; it borders on the obsessive! But singers don’t have it easy in this country, so I totally understand that musicians are coveting the exposure that participation in the contest will afford them. I was thrilled to learn that Morena was last night’s winner and will present Malta in Belgrade. Morena’s real name is Margaret and she’s from Sannat in Gozo! Whether you want my two cents or not, I’m going to give them to you anyway: I don’t think the song (Vodka) does justice to Morena’s voice, which I’ve heard many times singing with the Gozitan band Spectrum. I snatched Morena’s photo...

NaBloPoMo #2 - Cyber friends
2007-11-02 09:53:00
Right now I feel… Just fineLate morning yesterday, I had just taken a break from the PC to get out and get some groceries, there was a knock on my door. A look through the little spy-hole revealed a whole crowd of people, foreign-looking. My brain did a quick poll to decide what kind of people they were (result: 90% charity collection, 9% Jehovah’s Witness, 1% Don’t know), before I opened up to find out who they really were. Standing in front of me was a family of 5, and mum, centre stage, said with a big smile, “I know you!” That would have been quite bizarre, if it wasn’t for the fact that I thought I knew her, too - but where from?? It was one of my MySpace friends, Fabienne from France (I’m not linking to her page because I don’t know if she’d want me to). We had exchanged a few e-mails - she was practising her German - but as is usual with me, I hadn’t replied for a long time. And there she was, surrounded by her hubb...
More About: Friends , Cyber

NaBloPoMo #1 - Ready, steady, go!!!
2007-11-01 08:13:00
1st November! Starting shot for the National Blog Posting Month - or NaBloPoMo! I’m still not sure about the “National” part of the name, but who cares… anyone can join - even you!! This morning I woke up at 3.15 by noises of rain and thunder. I had to leave my cosy bed to close the window of my study - fortunately I remembered that I had left it wide open last night! While I stumbled down the stairs the dream I had woken up from came back to me, and I must say it was one of the silliest dreams I’ve had in a while: All my frantic efforts to try and get my work done and blog at the same time, just wouldn’t work out, and I missed my first NaBloPoMo post. I didn’t wake up in a sweat - but I could have LOL! Only in the last few days I started thinking about suitable subjects for daily blogging. Until then, I only thought it was important just to do it. But while browsing other blogs I found out that many of them had set themselves a subject f...
More About: Ready

I love my daddy! :)
2007-10-30 19:12:00
Right now I feel… EcstaticDo you remember how a little girl feels a couple of days before Christmas? Because I do. And that’s exactly how I feel right now! A week ago I very nicely talked my Daddy into the idea to get himself a new camera (that coveted Canon EOS 400D) and to give me his “old” one (not really that old!), which obviously would end up spare… Oh I love my daddy! Just came off the phone with him: he already bought the new one and that little gem on the left is gonna be mine!!! Wouldn’t you feel ecstatic too? Unfortunately (well, fortunately, really LOL!) he’s a photo freak and he won’t send it off before trying out both cameras and comparing the results. Aaaargh! This is going to take till Christmas!! Thank goodness I have so much work to do that I’ll hardly have time to be impatient for it to arrive. I just received another job from a German company this morning, and I’m totally spread out now… I&...
More About: Love

Mixed Bag on Sunday
2007-10-28 10:51:00
Right now I feel… Just fineI’d feel “just fine”, that is, if it wasn’t for my blog problem. It is ridiculous… I’ve left not a single stone unturned while trying to get to the root of it. That silly error in Internet Explorer just doesn’t want to go away. It’s not the template - I tried Wordpress’s very own ‘default’ theme without bells and whistles. It’s not the scripts either (though they probably contribute to the sloooow loading of the page). Must be me then?! I’ve installed a blog in a different directory, using the same template… and it loads just fine. I’m at the end of my wisdom! Some geeky help would be greatly appreciated. Any takers? All the blog tinkering distracted me from the two major events (for me, anyway!) this week: Yesterday the postman finally delivered my copies of “Leben und Arbeiten in Malta”. What an astonishing feeling it is to hold your work in your ...
More About: Sunday , Mixed , Mixe

Grrrr!
2007-10-27 14:44:00
Right now I feel… FrustratedThis morning my blog friend Wen told me again about that weird error that brings internet explorer to a halt while loading my blog. I thought there was something wrong with the template and spent more time than I’d planned to on installing a new one. But apparently the template was not to blame!! It must be one of those bloody scripts… Please bear with me if the maintenance screen (which I find neat, by the way! ) shows up every now and then during the next hours few days. I reckon it would be worse if you were dropped into my choppy blog waters and didn’t know WTF was going on! Probably I’ll totally revamp this site and will throw out a lot of stuff. I know very well how frustrating it is to try browsing a site/blog that loads slowly - let alone not at all. Hopefully, I’ll get this done soon. Oh, and while I’ll be at it, I promise I’ll update my blog roll also - eventually!! I so don’t need this...

Fool if you think it’s over…
2007-09-12 10:37:00
Right now I feel… Just fine  Ok, so Chris Rea’s song is about romance rather than the illusion of summer being over, but I kept singing it in my head practically all day yesterday… At first, when I opened my eyes in the morning, I had actually felt really good: with overcast sky and eery stillness in the air, nature promised a storm in the making. At least that’s what I sensed, and the prospect gave me an exhilarating kick, which the first downpour after summer usually does. Well, nature, apparently, had only been joking. Haha. It took hours for the sun to come out… but out it came and as the day grew older, it became hotter and stickier, and by early afternoon I was a sweaty, icky mess. Moving out of the fan’s air stream even just for short moments was killing me. That’s when Fool if you think it’s over started running around in my head. Only moments after I had contemplated how silly it was to believe that there actually coul...

My little chat corner :)
2007-09-10 13:17:00
Right now I feel… GeekyNow this definitely belongs into The Geek Zone ! While setting up the new captcha plug-in (thank you so much for the tip Heather, it already works a charm!) I came across this ingenious little forum plug-in for Wordpress. Of course I had to check it out… wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t! If you feel like it and have some free time to fill (don’t we all!! ) go and visit my brand-new chat corner. You don’t need to register but of course spammers won’t have a chance (I hope!!); all you need to do is work out the simple maths question. Unfortunately I have no time right now to play with the thing… Will be back later though! P.S. I promise you that anyone nasty slipping through will be swiftly annihilated!!
More About: Chat , Corner , Litt

Mixed Bag on Sunday
2007-09-09 17:56:00
Right now I feel… Just fineWhoa… at the last count, there were 88 comments on my photo hunt post, and if I tell you that I visited no less than 180 different sites on Friday and Saturday, you’ll think I must have a screw loose. Which is probably true, but most likely it was a one off. No way I do such marathons every weekend!! I had a lot of empty hours to fill, though, with hubby away on Friday night and then working most of Saturday, day and night. I found no friends online to chat with either, so I ended up surfing all those photohunt posts, while having some background accompaniment from a special edition of Orange County Choppers; daddy Paul took the kids on vacation to Australia. Was quite amusing, actually. Oh yes, and I also wasted some time on simpsonizing myself… Yep. Waaaay too much time on my hands! This morning I meant to start blogging minutes after waking up. I had a right rant coming up that actually managed to aggravate my bloody hot flus...
More About: Sunday , Mixed , Mixe

Photo Hunt - Music
2007-09-07 11:55:00
Right now I feel… Creative Music , which is this week’s Photo Hunt theme, plays a big role in our family members’ lives. While George and I are restricted to listening to lots of it, our son is working hard on becoming a Kirk Hammett incarnation (though he doesn’t approve of me saying that!!). I would have loved to bring you a photo of him strumming his treasured B.C. Rich Virgin but I didn’t want to invade his privacy more than I already have! So the next best thing, I thought, was cat antics with the precious piece. I was really, I mean really patient, laying out the bait (the guitar) on Simba’s favourite hang-out, and then waiting for the trap to snap. Waiting. And waiting some more. Finally he decided it was time for a nap, only the ensuing photo session turned out a complete non-starter. He was merely utterly disgusted that someone else had taken his place already; once he figured out that there could be only one, Simba withdrew without furth...

Glorious September
2007-09-06 12:03:00
Right now I feel… CoolTo those of you who live in more moderate climates it must sound smug if I call our present weather a relief of immense proportions. The forecast highs for the rest of this week are always under 30°C, which for many is probably more than they could wish for even in their warmest months. As for me, I’m looking forward to rain by the bucketful, a little thunder and lightning thrown in for good measure. Afternoons by the fireplace, cosy reading sessions under a blanket on the sofa, a mug of hot chocolate on the side… well, you get the idea. Until temperatures plunge low enough for this wonderful vision to materialise, I’ll have to contend with watching the lovely September sky - it’s finally a real, refreshing blue again! That’s a colour we don’t often get to see in summer when heat, dust and humidity reduce nature’s palette to a hodgepodge of yellow, beige and hazy grey. It seems like everything is taking one ...

Annoying Internet Explorer…
2007-09-01 00:00:00
Right now I feel… Confused Good morning… um, is it good for you? Because I’ve had better ones! I received an e-mail from Grego this morning, who kindly informed me that there was a technical problem with my blog in internet explorer. In fact I’ve managed to reproduce it immediately (it’s been a loooong time ...
More About: Internet , Internet Explorer , Explorer , Anno , Annoying

Photo Hunt - Dirty
2007-09-01 00:00:00
Right now I feel… Creative This week Photo Hunt goes Dirty ! My take on it was a straight forward one: I braved the debilitating heat last Wednesday and drove all over the island in my search for dirt, and I was rather pleasantly surprised by the general cleanliness - even the spots that were tagged ...

Good old Xlendi
2007-08-28 00:00:00
Right now I feel… Just fineSomeone opened a thread called “Pictures from the Past” on Malta Forums, for which I dug out my old photo albums, once again. Back in 1983, when I enjoyed three vacations in Gozo, I was utterly in love not only with George but also with Xlendi! As a matter ...
More About: Good , Lend

Warming to Gozo?
2007-08-27 00:00:00
Right now I feel… A rant coming onYesterday, the Sunday Times of Malta carried a letter to the editor, which I found so frustrating that I almost wanted to scream. I will reproduce the entire letter hereunder because the link to the original article will cease to be active after 30 days… Warming to Gozo ...
More About: Ming , Armin

Water Polo in Gozo
2007-08-26 00:00:00
Right now I feel… Angry A couple of weeks ago I went to see the under-14 and under-17 teams of the Otters in action at their water polo pitch in Marsalforn. They played the Maltese Neptunes - a team well-used to battling for league top spots. Basically, that means it was a little like David ...
More About: Water , Polo

My interview on “Expat Interviews”
2007-08-26 00:00:00
Right now I feel… Happy Expat Interview s .com… Woohoo! Read my interview on ExpatInterviews.com!! During my recent activities in a bit to get word out about my blog’s existence, sognatrice, a fellow She Who Blogs member, recommended I check out a website called ExpatInterviews.com. But even before I had the chance to do anything about it, ...

Uriah Heep
2007-08-25 00:00:00
Right now I feel… Just fineBlogger and fellow photo hunter, Jams O Donnell, wrote a short post expressing his dislike for Uriah Heep… a group that I really like. A lot. So I thought I’d dedicate this song to him, it just might turn him around. But even if it won’t, ...

Photo Hunters - Happy
2007-08-25 00:00:00
Right now I feel… A heatstroke coming on The Photo Hunt ers theme of the week is Happy . Sounds so easy, doesn’t it? Giving it a connection to Gozo, however, I found not easy at all. I was considering taking photos of kids playing on the beach, or perhaps a playground. But our current heatwave didn’t ...

Slumber
2007-08-21 00:00:00
Right now I feel… Annoyed That’s all I could say in my defence if I’d have to give reasons for my slumber… It’s hot & sticky, and it’s driving me to distraction! Fortunately, there isn’t anyone I have to report to about my lack of motivation to do anything… which includes practically everything! If you ...

Monday
2007-08-20 00:00:00
Right now I feel… Just fine (Have I ever mentioned that we’re tempted to rename him ‘Garfield’?? LOL!) It’s a good thing there’s weekends before Monday s… Our weekend was rather good - we had one of our family BBQ’s by the sea in Marsalforn on Saturday. Nowadays I don’t go anywhere without my camera, but don’t ...
More About: Onda