Last of the Malta pics

I can't believe that it's November already.  The year is whizzing by.  I said that I would post more photos, lovely to bring a bit of warmth to an autumnal day.  The last day we had in Malta we spent some time on a harbour cruise in Valletta.  It is quite a large harbour with Sliema to the west and Paola to the east with several large inlets which are big enough to hold fishing boats, a marina of larger vesssels and sailing boats, some cruise ships and once had a shipbuilding industry which is now no more.

This is Tigne Point, in Sliema and on the far right is one of the watchtowers not far from the outer harbour wall.  There is still some building going on here with a lot on new apartments and a shopping mall under construction.  The tall yellow building is a hotel.

A lot of the harbour has tall fortified walls to repel invaders.  The first of these is Manoel Island where there was once a hospital

Just round the corner from here were a few little boats

And this one above is said to belong to a Mr Abramovich (one of a fleet I suspect).  There were some more yachts nearby that were moored in readiness for a boat race around the Mediterranean islands that weekend.

Below the gun battery in Valletta were some visiting cruise ships.  It seems to be a popular stopping off point for several cruises as we saw half dozen ships when we visited the town during our stay.  Here are two of them.

 This one is fuelling up for its onward journey

We later saw this ship outside the harbour wall

 When inside the wall it proceeded to turn 180 degrees so that it could reverse into it's berth.  Fancy trying to parallel park something as big as that!

Amongst the many vessels visiting was this Canadian warship

And we spied a Sunseeker boat (they're made in Poole) so had to take a photo.

Our last visit was to Marsaxlokk (Marsa-shlock). A small fishing village not far from Malta airport.  Some lovely sights there with traditional fishing boats and this charming little sculpture.

A lovely little town to sit and relax watch the sea before contemplating coming home again.  To think all this was less than two weeks ago.

I have got some sewing and knitting stuff to show soon.
 

More Malta pics

Such a change from last week, being back at work, the nights are darker, days colder and wetter.  Will be even darker when the clocks go back at the weekend.  Time to look at some sunny pics to warm myself up!

Last Thursday we took an excursion with the tour company we booked with to Gozo.  David finds it funny that I get all excited about a trip on a ferry (doesn't matter whether it's France or Isle of Wight, even the Sandbanks chain ferry - I love going on a boat).

 This was leaving the harbour in Malta where there is a shrine in the harbour wall

 The seafront in Gozo

 Jellyfish warning sign in Xlendi (pronounced Shlendy).  Thought the Fried Egg Jellyfish looked rather bizzare (bottom left)

 Lovely view of the bay

Didn't stop me getting my feet wet - first time in Mediterranean waters (although he took a photo of me eating ice cream and not paddling in the water!).

After going to a local hotel for lunch then onto another part of the Gozotan coast in Dweera Bay.  There the arch made by sea erosion looked almost like Durdle Door and there were boat rides into a cave nearby,

 Chance to take a photo of David

 A small chapel neaby

Very popular place on the tourist trail - look at all those coaches and a Malta tour open top bus was just arriving here.  In the distance is a tower which was part of the string of watchtowers along the Gozo and north Malta coast.

 We then visited a fantastic church called St Phillips or Ta Pinu, which was the site of a miracle when a local woman (now buried in the church) heard the words of Mary.  The church was not in the middle of a community, it seemed in the middle of nowhere.  But people came to share their miracles too, where there is a room dedicated to thanking God for the babies that survived or people overcoming illnesses, having been healed. Amazing to look at. The architecture was pretty amazing too, couldn't help looking at the ceiling. 

fabulous Rose window

 This picture in this arched frieze is made of mosaics

Just look at the pattern in this arch

And this one too. Inspiration for a quilt maybe?

Here's some of Davids pics

After visiting the main town of Victoria we then headed back to Malta.  Again watching the vehicles getting on the ferry and watching it set off.

After this lengthy posting I'll show some pics of our harbour cruise last Friday very soon.

Back from Malta

Nice to be back after our week's holiday and catch up with my blog.  The holiday didn't have an auspicious start as we flew into stormy weather.  The flight last Saturday was delayed from 11.20 pm to just after midnight from Gatwick and the last flight out of the airport.  Sunday was still stormy with heavy rain and heavy seas just look at the photo below. The wall that you can see if the edge of a swimming pool with the wave crashing over.

On the Monday the sea was still stormy but at least sunny by now as we explored Sliema, the town where we were staying.  The town is quite a popular resort and there is a lot of building work going on to build more hotels, apartments and a new shopping centre.  It seemed almost like home with familiar shops such as M&S and Next.

This was the sea just a couple of days later. Nice and calm and the weather was a lot nicer and warmer too.

Above and below are a couple of pieces of artwork on the streets of Sliema, as you can see above there's David stopping for tea.  Below is a cutout of people enjoying the promenade casting the image on the pavement.


Tuesday saw us venture into Valletta, Malta's capital.  It is a fortified city with walls around the town to defend the country from enemies as it's had invasions from various countries in its history. Malta is famous as the centre for the Order of the Knights of St John and in the middle of Valetta is the Co Cathedral of St John where the knights are buried in this elaborate Cathedral.

 Above and below are the chapels dedicated to the Grand Masters

The floor are where the Grand Masters are buried, made in marble depicting death and glory.  The stones often showed skeletons or skulls on them.

This is looking down the cathedral to the altar with the chapels being in the arches on each side (there are 8 in all).

After the visit to the cathedral we explored more of the city ending at Upper Barrakka Gardens over looking the harbour.  There were cruise ships, we saw a sea plane which flies between Valletta and Gozo and walking through the park there was a piano which invited one to play on it.

The next day we took an island tour bus on the southern route taking us through Valletta (again) out to the towns surrounding the harbour, to the fishing village of Marsaxlokk, before stopping off at the Blue Lagoon and back to Sliema.

We had a visit to the island of Gozo on a tour, which was quite good, but will post some photos of this in my next post.  

For now though, it's back to work tomorrow, but we can feel already that autumn is in the air and things are a lot colder on our return to the UK.

Just before we go....

on holiday for a week!  David and I are off to Malta, hoping to get a bit of autumn warmth and maybe some sun too.  Booked it just about 4 weeks ago it was a holiday that we were going to earlier this year but never go around to.  After disappointing summer weather decided the time was right to book this.

Before I go I thought I would show a couple of photos.  In the last post I sent of my wiggly skinny quilt to Avril and yesterday I received a skinny from Mary in Edinburgh.  This looks really gorgeous and came with a postcard with views of Edinburgh.  It was nearly a year ago we visited there, but some memories were bought back of that trip.  I had saved this the right way around but Blogger is deciding otherwise.

I hadn't shared with you a postcard that I sent to Plum  as part of the ongoing Birthday postcard swap.  She had requested 'Architecture' so I sent her a house, here.

I thought it looked rather fun, very cheery.  I've got ahead on these postcards and have made two more cards which I will show later.  One for the end of this month, another for November.  I've signed up for another year of the Birthday Swap as I like making the odd postcard.  In November I've also gone for "Here's One I Made Earlier" which is really easy as I've already made the postcards because they are spares from earlier swaps.

Hoping that I shall have quite a few photos to share when I get back after next week. Take care!

Catching Up

It's been a little while since I last posted and it's one of those quiet times when there's not been a lot to blog about.

David was "on call" over this weekend so he set to and started to decorate the garage (yes I said decorate).  When this house was built in 1989 it was originally used as a doctor's surgery and where the garage is became a room so the walls are clad with plasterboard instead of the usual breeze blocks showing and it also has a carpet.  The front was replaced with a garage door. As with most British homes the garage is a storeroom rather than for housing a car, though mine did used to go in there when it was new, that didn't last long! Now we're back David now keeps his model railway in there and has plans to extend the existing layout.  We've also got the bigger shed for storage too so one side of the garage was cleared for painting and he'd also painted the ceiling with some white emulsion that was left by one of the tenants.

The left hand side all painted and looking nice

and the right hand side, railway to the left of the photo and a display for the wagons

We've also now got some long curtains in the living room to shut out the dark weather now the evenings are drawing in.

 And here's a photo of my orchid which has had 4 blooms in one week and there's another 10 buds on the stem.

This post is somewhat lacking in sewing content as I haven't done a lot this week.  Last week the Bourne Quilters were making pot holders and this below is my little effort.  I got the tops ready before the meeting and quilted (with my new machine) during the evening.  It really does need a walking foot, so will get around to getting one soon.  Yesterday I tidied up the sewing and put the binding on and all done!

I also posted of my wiggly quilt (see here) for the BQL Skinny Quilt challenge to Avril who has a blog here.

Creative Stitching and Hobbycrafts Show, Exeter

Having worked from home virtually all week David was wanting to get out at the weekend.  In fact we hardly had any time at home last weekend.  On Saturday we ventured over to Exeter to the Creative Stiching and Hobbycrafts show.  This has been a regular event for some years but never got around to visiting so this show was a first time for us.  Besides quilting, embroidery and knitting there were yarn spinning groups, sugarcraft and even an egg-decorating group represented there.  There were quite a few papercrafting traders too, so an interesting selection of things to see.

There were displays to see as well as traders, but although I took my camera I didn't replace my memory card from the last time I uploaded photo's (because I use a card reader to load my photos onto the computer).  So David and I took pics from our mobile phones instead.  Here's one from a display of costumes from the five main characters on Downton Abbey.  I think there may be more photos, but this is the only one that I've got at present.

Further along we saw a large display of postcards by members of the West Country Embroiders and although I took a few photos here the light around there wasn't brilliant but here's a selection.

David liked the embroidered Mini - said it looked like a car from an Ikea advert! He also said with the number of cards that I've got I could rival their display!

I did manage to shop as well and bought some fabric, even some to make a couple of skirts. I've also bought some yarn, a pattern and more unusually, so cutting dies to go with my Big Shot machine which will go towards some card making for Christmas (that's not long now, rather scary thought).

I saw some mask templates, thought it would make interesting effects on fabric as well as card.

The top two fabrics I'll probably make skirts with.  I couldn't resist the Christmas fabrics either. Plenty to keep me busy then.