Fireworks Night

These are some of the photos I took of the fireworks display. Some are of the red club and some from the green club. I hope you get to enjoy them as much as we did last night.

Ferrying St.Peter to our shores!

Today I'm posting more than one photo so I can show you a part of our feast celebrations which I think is a bit unusual.
It has become a habit by both clubs to bring in the statue of St.Peter by boat to the shore and some boat owners follow the main boat as sort of a parade, waving flags,ballons and sounding horns. This particular club (we'll call it the red club) even had a band on a barge to accompany them.
The last two photos are of the statue being lifted to shore and the procession afterwards.
I must admit that I'm neither a follower of the red club nor of the green one but I go to both of their functions depending on when it's practical for me to go, so yesterday we were part of this boat parade on our boat.
I'll be posting fireworks photos tomorrow, as the display is tonight.

Banners and fireworks!

Today I'm showing one of our village streets decorated with banners during the week of our feast. Further up the road is one of the clubs I told you about yesterday (the one with a green balcony on the left hand side), their colours are green and yellow whilst the other club's colour is red.
The second photo is of some more fireworks being prepared by one of the clubs.

Preparing fireworks

I took these photos yesterday evening, while volunteers, (the man in grey tshirt is my favourite uncle,Tony) were preparing different type of fireworks which will be lit on Saturday evening. This display is by one of the local band clubs as we have two clubs nowadays which means a lot of showing off is done by both to prove who is the best. I must say I think it's silly of both clubs to do so and it would be a whole lot better to work together.
The second photo is of one finished display which is ready to be lifted upright before it is lit on Saturday. Hopefully I'll be able to take photos next Saturday of the fireworks in action.

St.Peter

This is our statue of St.Peter, it is being taken out for the procession on Monday. Before the procession starts, all the children who made the Holy Communion this year offer a flower to St.Peter during the opening service.

St.Peter's Parish Church

This week is our village feast, dedicated to St.Peter. This is our local church all lit up for this special occassion. I took this photo yesterday evening after the statue of St.Peter was taken out for a procession as a start to the celebrations.

Paola Parish Church

The need for a bigger church for the people of Paola at the start of the 20th century was already being felt. Even though the church of St.Ubaldesca had been enlarged in 1900 there were still a lot of people who had to listen mass from outside the church. When Paola was made a parish in 1910, the need for a new church was being felt much more, especially when, ten years later, the population exceeded 5000.

The idea to build a new church originated when Parish Priest Nerik Bonnici went to live in a house near Guze D'Amato who offered to prepare and design the plans. Three designs were prepared, out of which one was chosen and the architect Philip Tortell was made responsible for the project. In the Christmas of 1922, the government gave the land where the new church had to be built and Mr. D'Amato bequeathed part of his own land.

Easter Sunday of April 1923 was a historic day for the Paolites. On that day the holy wooden cross was carried in a procession from the church of St.Ubaldesca for the designated open undeveloped area enclosed by Strada Loggia (today Guze D'Amato Street), Lampuka Street, Paola Avenue (today Church Avenue) and Paola Square (today Antoine De Paule Square), The Fra. G.M. Antoine De Paule band accompanied the cross along the main street until Dun Salvu Chircop ceremoniously placed the cross on the spot where the new church had to be built.

Three months later, on 30th June, 1923, the first foundation stone was laid. This lies under the right belfry and can be seen whilst you are entering the church from the main door.

Mr. D'Amato introduced new material and technology during the construction of this huge church. The parishioners, mostly dockyard workers who offered their services voluntarily after their normal working hours, helped Guze D'Amato in its construction. Money was collected from the families and a number of big tombola parties (with a cash prize of £50) were organised.

In less than a year after the laying of the cross, on 24th February, 1924 another ceremony was held - this time to commemorate the laying of the first stone. It was laid and blessed by the Archbishop Mons. Angelo Portelli. However two years later work was halted due to some worries about the construction of the church. Work continued in April 1928 and on 15th July of the same year the first was mass was held in the new site.

The project was completed on 13th December, 1959 with the laying of the stone cross on the main dome.

Paola is a town situated a few miles from my village (Birzebbuga),in fact it only takes a 10min drive to get there. The town's parish church is dedicated to Christ the King.

Masonry 3

This is mostly for Abraham Lincoln, I hope you can see where the coving was placed just below the ceiling and that this photo is better than yesterday's. I took this from the upstairs landing and Joe made the coving for the curved wall facing me when I was taking this pic.

Masonry 2

This is my husband Joe fixing the coving to the wall just below the ceiling. He is standing on a plank placed across some scaffolding, over the staircase. The second photo is of his finished work after painting the coving in white and the wall in crushed cotton (that's the name of the paint colour).
I must say I'm very pleased with the result!

Masonry

First of all, thank you again for all your wonderful and heartfelt comments on my yesterday's post!

Today, I'm posting something totally different. This photo shows a part of the coving we used around the ceiling for our upstairs landing. The difference about it is that instead of buying it readymade, my husband Joe carved it by hand out of limestone (known in maltese as "tal-franka").
I took this photo while the coving was still lying on the floor just before Joe fixed it onto the wall just below the ceiling. Tomorrow I will post a photo of the finised work.

Paternal Love !!!

This is my dad with my twin girls, (my son can just be seen wearing a red hat) on our boat, last sunday, enjoying a swim at our favourite bay, Hofriet in Delimara. My dad was pretending to be praying before jumping in as he was "scared" it might be too cold and obviously my girls were laughing at him for being so "foolish".
I decided to post this photo today as I think the special love between a grandparent and his grandchildren really stands out in this shot. I especially like Niamh's loving smile as she looks at him, her special grandad!

Landslide

This is the photo of the landslide that I was talking about in the previous post. You can see the different colour of the cliffs where the new cliff face is now revealed.
Sorry for not posting yesterday but I had some trouble with my computer and I couldn't use it. In the end it turned out I only had to turn it off and plug the mouse wire back in properly,silly me!

A local legend !

On our way to the Blue Grotto caves, we go past a cave known as "Ghar Hasan". This is situated at Hal Far limits off Birzebbuga. This cave is the dark hole you can see high up in the cliffs on the left hand side. Up until to a few years ago, one could go inside this cave and walk round, but a landslide in the cliffs occured and it has now been declared dangerous and has been fenced off. I will show a photo tomorrow of this landslide.

The name "Ghar Hasan" meaning Hasan's Cave is due to a local legend, and I must thank "birze oldtimer" for the following reference.

According to legend a Turk called Hasan abducted a Maltese girl and kept her inside the cave. When discovered by the locals he preferred to kill the girl and commit suicide rather than be captured, so he hurled himself and the girl into the sea below.

Coral

First of all, thank you all for your encouraging comments on my photos and I'm glad you're enjoying this trip.

Today's photo is of the coral (a hard substance formed from the skeletons of very small sea animals) which you can see around the inside of the Blue Grotto caves.

I dedicate this to Joanna, my older sister, as coral is her favourite gem to wish her well for her recovery. She even has her house named "Coral".

Blue Grotto cliffs

Blue Grotto, known as Il-Hnejja (meaning 'The Arch') in Maltese, was given its English name by a British soldier who thought it similar enough to Grotta Azzurra (The Blue grotto) in Capri to deserve the same name. A trip to the Blue Grotto is high on the list of most people's itineraries, and with good reason. Located near Zurrieq in southwest Malta, an area famous for its rocky coastline, the natural sea caves are very appealing.

All the boats travelling to The Blue Grotto enter under an immense arch into a 140ft high cave cut into the rock face. The system consists of six caves carved by years of relentless pounding by the sea, of which the Blue Grotto is the largest and most impressive. The water seems an impossible cobalt colour as the sky reflects off the white sand bottom. The caves sparkle both with blue reflections of the sea and orange, purple and green of the various minerals present in the rocks.

Aquamarine

I took this photo while we were going round the Blue Grotto caves, as you can even go inside these caves. It always amazes me how beautiful the colour of the sea is here, especially with the reflection of the sun on it when you're coming out of the caves.

I'd like to thank you all for yesterday's comments, and to say that my sister is doing very well and recuperating at home. Thank you for your kind thoughts!

Blue Grotto Caves

Today I'm taking you on another boat trip with my husband Joe, to Blue Grotto caves. These caves are situated in the south of Malta in Zurrieq. These are very popular with tourists as the sea here is an amazing colour and coral can be seen on the rocks, ( I will post more photos later on this week).

I would like to dedicate this post, my first, to my VERY SPECIAL friend Lisa from Grimsby, as I know she loves this place and it also brings back many happy memories!

Announcements for today ....

First announcement : This afternoon my children and I will be travelling to Germany, hubby follows on Saturday. We shall be staying with some friends in Trier and we will also hit the road and visit France. This vacation will last 3 weeks and we will be back on the 6th of August.













Second announcement: Malta daily photo will keep rolling, not by me but by my dear friend Laetitia (photo taken by Andy, my 3 year old son!!). I am sure you will all enjoy her photos.

Today I would also ask for you visitors to this blog to spare a thought and a prayer for Laetitia's sister Joanna who will be admitted to hospital for an operation, maybe Laetitia will follow this up and let you know how it went.

I take this opportunity to thank her for taking the time to do this. In the meantime I might (depends if I get hold of a computer) post photos of our vacation on my other blog my daily life. Thank you and see you soon :)

Church of St. Catherine of Italy - Valletta , Malta

Since today is Sunday I decided to post a photo of a Church. The Church of St. Catherine of Italy. This Church was designed by the Maltese architect Girolomo Cassar in 1576 and was rebuilt in the seventeenth century. Why St. Catherine of Italy? well the order of St.John was divided into a lot of languages, one of them being Italian, so this church was used by the Italian speaking.




For all of you who yesterday tried to see the video clip (or not) I posted I have to once again say sorry as so far blogger is not uploading it for me! Maybe one day :)

more Malta Police

 

Somehow I could not download this video clip through the normal create a post, so I tried using Picasa. Hope this works. This is part of the parade, as the police force where marching down through republic street in Valletta. I wish you all a nice weekend.