Beach Weather and Feasts

BEACH WEATHER

A hot weekend saw us at the beach - it was a case of spot the sand amongst all the umbrellas, sun lounges, eskys etc. but it was a change from swimming off the rocks which we normally do.

This picture shows a family which decided to have a bbq at the beach slap bang in the middle of everyone else, they lit a charcol bbq which spread smoke everywhere, causing people to move and ruining the day for a lot of people. As some of the family said this could happen only in Malta.

Which reminds me, there is a web site titled onlyinmalta.com which shows some of the strange things that happen in this country- have a look when you have time

FEASTS

Each village in Malta has at least one church named after a saint and every week during summer the villages take it in turns to celebrate the special day of their saint with much fanfare, this usually involves a special mass, a procession through the streets with the statue of the relevant saint and a musical band followed by a street party, disco and lots of fireworks.

Last weekend was the feast of St Paul and St Publius, as this was the culmination of the year of St Paul as decreed by the Vatican it was cause for a much greater celebration. The evening started at about 6pm with an open air mass in front of the Cathedral in Valetta. The mass was attended by a cardinal from the Vatican and about 1000 priests and laymen and about 5000 maltese. Then a parade through the streets of Valetta accompanied by the band and about 2000 people all clapping and singing. The formal part of the evening ended at about 11.30pm inside the church of St Paul when the statue was carried into the church and blessed

You can see the lumps on the necks of the statue carriers from carrying the statue around the streets, apparently they pay the church thousands of euro for the priviledge of carrying the statue.

We are off to Ireland next week so there wont be a blog for a few weeks- stay tuned