St Pauls Valletta Bocci Club

 St Paul's vs the Visitors. St Paul's in red. Maltese bocci is played on a rolled purpose specific dirt surface (by no means level) with bowls in the shape of cylinders - heavy and dense, made of some composite material like lawn bowls. As you can imagine these are less predictable than a round ball and are thrown rather than rolled - though rolling is an art in itself.. They are quite big, a full hand size. Each team has eight of these. They also have three smaller balls the size, shape and weight of a golf ball. The aim of the game is, like all bowls games to get as many of your balls (large or small in this case) closest to the jack which in this game is the size of a small marble.

 Teams can use their 11 balls in any order and each team member (3 per team) specialises. One only rolls the golf balls (in the yellow team this was done by an older man smoking a cigar), a second specialises in high shots, spinning the ball through air to connect on landing with an opponent's ball, removing it from play; and the third, the captain, uses the ball both as a projectile and as a rolling device to secure the best scoring positions.

These teams took their evening game very seriously and even had substitutes available when one of them was out of sorts (or got a call from his wife to come home for dinner).  It wasn't only old blokes. There were a couple of players in their thirties. And a referee. That's him in the yellow vest. Beers and coffee were served after half a dozen ends, all watched by a crowd of local enthusiasts and a few passing tourists.

From my window 7 - Tight Squeeze

From my window 6 - Batten down the hatches

 We've just had two days of Force 4 winds from the north blowing straight into the harbour. Most of that time I was sick in bed so hardly noticed. Our harbour cruise on Saturday had taken us beyond the breakwater and through this oddly short bridge. It's a recent replacement of an older bridge - you can see that the old pylon doesn't actually make contact with the new structure.  The Mediterranean has very specific names for the seasonal winds which can spring from nowhere and last only short periods. There are a dozen or more - the best known being the Sirocco and the Mistral. My amateur opinion is that this was a late season Gregale.

Maltese Crosses

 Here's a few connections which I had never made before now.

The Maltese Cross is the insignia of the Order of the Knights of St John who have a 900 year history and who had Malta as their headquarters for over 200 years. They emerged from the Crusades and were a group of Noblemen who chose to live in a religious order with vows of chastity, poverty, obedience etc and dedicated their lives to resisting the Muslim threat to Christendom. These vows were not always adhered to - given that they were a maritime order of fighting noblemen they often behaved like drunken sailors after their conquests. Since 1798 when Napoleon evicted them from Malta they have continued as the Knights of Malta based in Rome and have the same status as the Red Cross in international charity work.

 Their insignia has been adopted by many organizations and even incorporated into flags of states. Is that a Maltese Cross I see on the Flag of Quensland, Australia? What's it doing there? The truth is nobody is sure. The flag was designed in the late 19th century and the original plan was to represent Queen Victoria in the design but they couldn't get a likeness so they moved to plan B. Queen Victoria, the Victoria Cross, crosses. The Maltese Cross had some affinity with the Victoria Cross and it seems this was a good enough reason to put it into the design. The designers, it seems,  just liked the Maltese Cross better than the Vicctoria Cross.

The Maltese Cross appears on insignias of first aid and ambulance services in Australia. The well know and volunteer based St John Ambulance Service clearly has lineage back to the knights but I had never known the connection. The Queensland Ambulance Service uses it on their badge. This is all consistent with the modern Knights of Malta (ST John) who are dedicated to good works.

Strangely the national flag of Malta incorporates the cross of St George rather than the Maltese Cross. This is in recognition of the only time a nation has been awarded the George Cross for bravery. Malta was accorded this honour in recognition of its contribution to the war effort in WWII.  Britain was originally supposed to withdraw after two years - post the defeat of Napolean Bonaparte by Admiral Horation Nelson - but overstayed its welcome by  almost 200 years. Malta achieved independance from Britain in 1964 with the Brits finally departing in 1979 

Postscript

 The 8 points of the Maltese Cross are supposed to represent the 8 virtues by which the knights lived.

1. Live in Truth
2. Have Faith
3. Repent of sins
4. Give proof of humility
5. Love justice
6. Be merciful
7. Be sincere
8. Endure persecution 

From My Window 5 - Malta water supply

Each apartment has its water container(s) on top of the building from which they draw their supply. Artesian ground water is pumped to the top of the building into these holding tanks .Jo only uses gravity feed for water pressure though she did have a pump. It broke down, she didn't replace it.. Seems to work.

From my Window 4 - Malta Bird's Eye View

Fortress Valletta

Went on a harbour cruise last night which Jo had organised for me as a little arrival gift.  It was organised by 'Heritage Malta' and focused on the 400 year old coastal fortifications and ended with wine and nibbles at the Maritime Museum. It was freezing.

Valletta was established in 1566 by the Knights of St John. The Knights were a maritime version of the Crusaders and were formed to combat the threat of invasion by the "Muslim hordes". They were knights representing many countries and needed a base/ Malta was  a strategic site and Spain agreed to hand over the island to the Knights as their sovereign territory.

After a protracted war with the Ottoman Empire led by Suleiman the Magnificent it was decided to build a fortified city to minimize the likelihood of a repeat of the near defeat by the Turks.. It was named after the Grand Master of the Order at the time, Jean De La Valette, and was an advanced design in that it was the first city in western Europe designed on a grid system (9 streets long by 12 across - a total area of a mere half a square kilometre). The design.includes an underground sewerage and subterranean tunnel system used over time as prisons, air raid shelters and devotional grottos. Valletta chose the site as it had potential for the construction of a series of headland forts to protect from future attack.The forts are magnificent and largely intact though in need of much repair. Malta is the European Capital Culture in 2018 and restoration work has already begun

That's my apartment sitting on the cliff top.

I crossed the harbour by ferry to visit the tourist centre of Sliema on Friday (it has a supermarket). Sliema is New Farm to Valletta's West End. I'm in the right place.