Well what a day yesterday was! First of all Lynn walked on ahead when it was time to go and catch the ‘tourist bus’ around the island. On her way and passing a home, a young child with obvious mental and physical disabilities ran out and was about to be run over when Lynn stopped him by putting out her arm and her walking stick across him, preventing him from continuing. The boy’s parents were grateful. We got the ‘hop on/ hop off’ tourist bus and had a bit of a tour round, even after one passenger tried speaking to me, as if I were a simpleton, telling me I could not buy tickets on the bus, I had to pre-book. You know? in that loud, single word at a time manner usually reserved for the English when confronted by a language barrier. I just smiled benignly at her and like the idiot she obviously thought I was (no comments please!) and when everyone had finished boarding, paid for our tickets. As I got upstairs I then asked Lynnder in that loud, single word at a time manner usually reserved for the English when confronted by a language barrier ‘who said I couldn’t buy tickets on the bus’? Off we went and a jolly good tour was being had until we found that after hopping off for refreshment at Azure Window we had boarded another identical bus but this one, we soon concluded, had been chartered by some hotel for their own tour. I could tell, by the observation that all the passengers were wearing identical wrist bands and some seemed bemused that upon returning to their seats, found 7 other people sat there and that there was no more room on the bus!! Lynn and I had a whispered conversation along the lines of ‘well a bus is a bus and we’ll just see where this one goes’. When it arrived in Rabat instead of Fortuna and I heard the driver telling everyone that they would be there for 2 hours I decided we need to change plans. Fortunately we were at the bus terminus so we then got a usual bus to Xlendi intending to pick up the tourist bus there. However, on the way to Xlendi and upon re-reading the so-called ‘timetable’ for the tourist bus which I had downloaded and printed but found out was different from the one published at the bus stops, I found out that we had no chance of completing the whole island tour as we would arrive in Mgarr 2 hours after the last bus had left that we wanted to catch! Having created this SNAFU and seeing the younger ones were hungry and wanting to swim, I found a table at a restaurant, next to the water’s edge and we sat, ordered and ate our way through several courses, quaffed copious amounts of white wine and just watched the children swimming. We all agreed that ‘life was good’ and the SNAFU didn’t really matter. We eventually got home several hours later, by local buses and after buying Luke a small plastic chair, so he could sit on the balcony with us (and being ordered by him that Steve and I carry him down the hill, sitting on the chair like some ruling Caeser through Rome) we all sat on the balcony, quaffed more wine and agreed that life was good. Then we noticed that a field opposite us had been set alight, was burning fiercely so I phoned the emergency services. A fire engine and Fireman Sam appeared som 20 minutes later and out the fire which by this time had gained a real hold and threatened other field crops. After that excitement we decided to toast the Gozitan Fire Brigade, several times, and agreed that life was good, even though the wine reserves were running low. It had been a long and interesting day; the grandchildren had been absolute stars and though knackered by this time we older ones concluded that Gozitan wine could knock any other wine in the world off its perch and I should buy some more in the morning!!!
Posted on: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 05:16:56 +0000
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