A few years ago we holidayed in Malta – I wish we could go there right now! – and one we went on an organised trip with a small sailing ship to the Blue Lagoon and the island of Gozo where we had the good fortune to see the Azure Window – which collapsed in a storm the year after. While we were on the way back to Valetta, the sun set on us…
Continue reading “Lockdown Diaries: Day 63 (Sunset Sailing)”
About a year ago I looked back at 2018, admitted it had been a real struggle to keep the blog going and hoped for things to go better in 2019. Well, I can tell you this: they didn’t (if you didn’t work this out already for yourselves by the scarcity of the posts). What can I say? May 2020 be better than 2019 and may I write some good posts this year! 🙂
But while you’re waiting for those posts, let’s have a quick review at some of the books of 2019: books you might enjoy – or you’ll want to avoid! 🙂
By the way, if you ever want to know what I’m reading, you can always take a look at the Reading Log (which I do try to keep reasonably up-to-date).
Continue reading “Twelve Books in Twelve Months (2019)”
Hace unas semanas he escrito unas líneas sobre Alonso de Contreras, un soldado español del siglo XVI, cuyas memorias inspiraron la vida del capitán Alatriste, el conocido héroe de Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Cosa que al parecer no le gustó a casi nadie (pero a mí sí que me gustó escribirlo). Si no lo has leído, puedes encontrarlo aquí:
⇒ Capitán y español (Las vidas de aquellos capitanes)
A few weeks ago I wrote some lines about Alonso de Contreras, a Spanish soldier from the 16th century, whose memoirs inspired the life of Captain Alatriste, the well-known hero of Arturo Pérez-Reverte. A piece that apparently almost nobody liked (but I did like writing it). If you haven’t read it, you can find it here:
⇒ The Three (Spanish) Musketeers
Bueno. Como mencioné en ese post, Alonso de Contreras no fue el único soldado español que escribió sobre su vida. Hoy os voy a recomendar dos libros más; porque, creed me, la historia es mejor que la ficción.
Anyway. As I mentioned in that post, Alonso de Contreras wasn’t the only Spanish soldier who wrote about his life. Today I’m going to recommend you two more books; because, believe me, history is indeed better than fiction.
Continue reading “Las verdaderas historias de… (The True Stories of…)”
The Air Vice-Marshal, with flailing arms, was describing how his fighters had completely broken up the first raid of Christmas Day, while the admiral, in whose dockyard the bombs had actually fallen, listened with all the courteous scepticism of a solid sailor for a romantic airman.
(Nicholas Montserrat: The Kappillan of Malta)
You might also like: ⇒ Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin ⇒ Mediterranean Brilliance ⇒ Turquoise
The sky is as low and grey as no sky has a right to be on the 29th of May. The only splashes of colour on Trafalgar Square were the high-vis jackets of the far too many policemen in attendance.
And then it rained.
Continue reading “Sun-drenched II”
The Azure Window in Dwejra Bay on the Maltese island of Gozo made headlines last week – not for a good reason. The rock formation, one of the most popular tourists sights on the small island, has disappeared without a trace during a storm.
I had the good fortune to see it when it was still there – so for today’s Mediterranean theme, a few photos of the Azure Window in memoriam (click photos to enlarge):
La Ventana Azul en la bahía de Dwejra en la isla de Gozo en Malta salió en las noticias la semana pasada – y no por una buena razón. Esta formación rocosa, uno de los más populares lugares de interés turístico en la isla pequeña, ha desaparecido sin dejar un rastro durante una tormenta.
Tuve la suerte de verla cuando todavía estaba allí – así que para el tema del Mediterráneo de hoy, algunas fotos de la Ventana Azul in memoriam (haz clic en las fotos para ampliar):
Continue reading “In Memoriam: Azure Window (La Ventana Azul)”
…like sapphires in colour, only that it is paler and more closely resembles the tint of the water near the sea-shore in appearance.
(Pliny the Elder: Natural History, XXXVII.56)
I don’t know about you but at around this time of the year, I invariably reach the point when I could murder for sunshine, flowers and the ability to go out without a coat.
(Not to mention it’s Monday.)
So what we need right now is a little sunshine:
Wishing you all a happy sunny Monday! (Click on the images to enlarge.)
The short answer is: very. 🙂
So you picked up a Maltese travel brochure and saw these glorious photos of the Blue Lagoon in which the water is implausibly blue, a shade known by people who care about such details as ‘cyan’. And you weren’t born yesterday, so you conclude that the colour of the sea water is the result of a photo filter and the name of the lagoon is probably an advertising gimmick.
And you’re wrong.
Continue reading “How Blue is the Blue Lagoon?”
I’ve lived in England for more than a decade by now but I’ve never yet made it to Stonehenge or the stone circles of Avebury. We did set off to see them once, hiring a car for the occasion, only for one of the kids to fall ill on the very day. Instead of a day out at Stonehenge we merely managed an expensive tour of London’s major roads; and we didn’t discuss visiting Stonehenge since.
The truth is that much as I like history, neolithic monuments don’t set my pulse racing. Somehow – I can’t help feeling – our stone age ancestors didn’t manage to do quite as many interesting things as the Phoenicians or leave as pretty ruins as the Greeks. Nevertheless, if you ever go to Malta, where there’s an awful lot of history crammed into a very small area, you could do worse than take a couple of hours to visit the megalithic temples of Hagar Qim. Dating from 3600-3200 B.C., they are a tad older than Stonehenge – and there’s just a bit more than a stone circle to see.
Continue reading “The Hagar Qim Megalithic Temples on Malta”
Today’s miscellany is in the manner of my Venice in Black & White at the end of May (which was easily one of my most popular photo posts) and it doubles as response to Cee’s Compose Yourself photo challenge on the theme of Black & White: The Basics.
I took these photos when I was still under the impression that photography’s only purpose was to faithfully re-create the colourful, aromatic, tactile reality of the 3-D world around me, less than a year ago, during our holiday on Malta. Only one of the photos was taken with an actual camera, the rest were captured on phone.
Continue reading “Malta in Black & White”
Okay, so it was a very hard week at work, in the evenings I was both tired & busy and I’ve done almost no blogging at all (although I did make some progress on a bilingual post with my first ever author interview)…
…I think it’s time to chill.
So that’s Malta over there on the starboard, people – taken from a sailing ship last autumn. If you consider this poor fare for a Sunday, more Malta stuff here, including a good book on Maltese history. 🙂 Happy Sunday!
Light streaming from heaven… 🙂 Sadly the photo is not near as beautiful as the real sight was – but then I took it with my phone through the window of a moving bus!
(In response to the 26 Weeks Letter Challenge: Letter L by Lumar1298)
During World War II, the island of Malta, just off the coast of Sicily but held by the British, became a crucially important location to both sides. Pre-war British reasoning that the island was indefensible meant that when Mussolini declared war in June 1940, Malta’s meagre defences consisted of six obsolete Gloster Gladiator aircrafts. Within hours of the declaration of war bombs were falling on Malta; the Grand Harbour, Valletta and the so-called Three Cities on the other side of the harbour suffered particularly badly as the Italians and the Germans tried to starve and bomb Malta into surrender…
“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three…” (1Cor 13:13)
Continue reading “Faith, Hope & Charity”
Day 4 Assignment: Bliss
“For me… the sound of the pleasant place is in the waves of the sea. And the smell of it is damp cordage and wood, on a fair morning when the off-shore breeze just carries the scent off the land. And the sight of it is a dolphin breaking clean and shining out of a foam crest – or the curve of a wind-washed sail, at evening, when the sea’s line shines.”
(The Journeying Moon: Sailing into History by Ernle Bradford)
Day 3 Assignment: Water & Orientation
On this assignment we’ve got water for theme, our relationship to water, what it reminds us of, etc. I love water so ideas come easily here from how precious drinking water is to the way rain water trickles down a window, from how all rivers lead to the sea to how you never step into the same river twice…
Continue reading “I Must Go Down to the Seas Again…”
Images:
With thanks to the Facebook page of jotdown.es for the idea of a photographic Good Morning.
Are you afraid of flying? Would you rather take a train any time? Seated over the wing, are you one of those who watch with horrified fascination as the wing trembles, wondering if it’s going to snap off? Do you swallow nervously every time you hear one of those weird noises planes make? And when the plane passes through turbulence, do you grab the armrest in panic? Well, this post is for you then.
Continue reading “Stick And Rudder (No Fear of Flying)”
I read an article in the New Yorker – I steal my ideas from wherever I can, which, according to Pablo Picasso or Steve Jobs, take your pick, makes me a great artist – in which the author Kathryn Shultz made a list of the ten best facts she learned from books this year.
Immediately this struck me as a good way to finish the year for a young book blog.
Continue reading “Ten Facts I Learned from Books This Year”
Waterblogged 