HIDDEN GORGES, WALLED CITIES AND CAESAR SALADS

A number of years ago a friend of mine left the UK to live on Gozo, a small island which is part of the Maltese archipelago in the Mediterranean, and sits less than 100km south of Sicily.

And we're talking small here. An outline of the island fits within the city boundaries of Edinburgh, and its population is equal to that of Portobello.

Inhabited since around 5,000 years BC, in 1551 its population went down to virtually zero, when the Ottomans invaded and removed everyone, executing many and enslaving the rest. Some two decades later, led by the Knights of Malta, the island was repopulated from Malta.

Until a few years after the second world war, the inhabitants of Gozo mostly moved around on horse and cart. When the Americans arrived in 1943 to build a temporary runway to support their invasion of Sicily, locals flocked to see the giant earth moving vehicles. Today there are certainly a lot of cars, and the roads themselves are not in great shape. Sadly driving skills are not at their best, with an average of one fatality per day. I chose to travel around by bus and of course, ferry.

There is a proposal to build either a bridge or undersea tunnel connecting the two islands, but with many years having passed since talking began, I sense a quiet resistance to the idea. It would certainly bring more than the 30 cars or so per hour that the current ferries do to Gozo.

Both Malta and Gozo have changed little in looks architecturally over the decades, and it is for this reason that it enjoys a very busy film industry. The streets and small sandstone and limestone towns stand in frequently for Palestine, Beirut and even ancient Rome. On the outskirts of the capital of Malta, Valletta, it boasts the largest water tank filming facility in Europe. Films such as Munich, Captain Philips and Game of Thrones have all filmed here.

By the very nature of its location, Gozo enjoys a much quieter time than its neighbour, and I can see the attraction that many Brits see, making up almost 40% of its population. On my visit there this week it was a pleasant 18˚C, a Scottish summer in essence. At the end of my short stay it was into the low 20s and for me this was bordering uncomfortable, so I doubt I will return in the blistering 40˚ heat of summer!

Victoria is the capital of Gozo, and, like Malta, has a British influence, with the likes of Holland & Barrett on the main street. But up on the highest point of the coastal town is an ancient walled citadel, recently restored.

Walls, some 100ft high, slope at an angle, with grassed walkways at their base. The views from the ramparts are, naturally, amazing, across the vast expanse of the Med and to nearby Malta.

Within an easy short boat ride is the third island, Comino, measuring just 3.5km square, and popular with all holiday makers, primarily for its famed Blue Lagoon, a naturally formed shallow pool of water within a small bay.

My friends apartment is a recent renovation, with marble floors and modern interior. It stays cool in the summer and warm'ish in the winter months, and is also almost self sufficient for energy, with most of the roof occupied by solar panels.

Knowing a resident when you are in a foreign holiday destination is quite handy, especially when their friends are very knowledgeable of the area. On a warm and breezy afternoon, a group of four of us ventured off on a walk off the beaten track. Our starting point was the bay of Mgarr ix-Xini, a picturesque location, and where Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt filmed By The Sea in 2014.

A gorge then goes inland, and we followed an overgrown footpath, hacking our way through vegetation, and even a bamboo forest at one point.

After less than an hour we came to an old water pumping station built in the Victorian era. A hundred feet of building rose up the gorge walled, looking as if someone had just glued it on.

Below was a further 100feet, deep into the ground, tapping into the natural water table. Long since abandoned, it is now replaced by a more modern facility some distance away, supplying all of Gozo with its water needs.

The gorge is a magnet for rock climbers, and a few of varying nationalities were busy belaying each other as we passed. As we climbed out of the gorge we came upon a series of holes in the rock surface, clearly carefully carved out millennia ago. I was unable to guess what their use had been.

It turns out that the largest opening, roughly two feet by three feet, was used for the first stage of grape pressing, then the shallow, triangular trough for a more thorough pressing, with any remnants being squeezed out in the small circular hole to the left. All the juice then gathered in the deep trough at the base. How you then extracted all of it efficiently from there is anyone's guess.

With my few days drawing to a close I decided to spend the last night in the capital city of Malta, Valletta, starting my journey out of the picturesque main harbour of Gozo.

If the walled citadel in Victoria on Gozo had impressed me, nothing prepared me for the gigantic nature of the walled city of Valletta.

These sloping defensive walls were some 150feet high, with the entire city surrounded on all sides. Up until I reached the newly constructed entrance, I had thought I was already in Valletta, but it turns out only the walled section is the actual capital.

There was not much time to explore, and we mostly walked it's high ramparts, at times daring to peer over the edge, legs wobbling with fear. Just within the entrance they had constructed a very modern-looking sandstone building for the parliament, and I am pleased to say it fits perfectly with the old buildings, with their Venetian-style wooden framed windows and sandstone walls.

Partly because Valletta is the European Capital of Culture for 2018, a lot of money has been spent on restoring the old buildings. But one building has not been restored to its former glory; the opera house. Situated just beyond the main entrance, it suffered a direct hit in World War II and was obliterated, save for some of its stone columns. So instead of rebuilding it they have created a modern, open air structure of steel within its boundaries, within its framing, stage and lighting rigs all naked and on show. This was my favourite structure.

After a late lunch of a delicious, large Caesar salad, and with the skies darkening, my friend bade me farewell to return to her home on Gozo. I wandered a little more as the light started to fade, then retired to my B&B for the last night, down a narrow street, not far from the Grand Harbour, on the edge of the walled city of Valletta.

THE CALEDONIA WAY

The Beast from the East decided to have one last foray, and I awoke last Sunday morning to another few inches of snow and bitter winds, driving spin drift into the air.

Undeterred, I loaded up my bicycle with panniers packed with gear and food, and set off to Waverley railway station in the heart of the city.

Pauline and I were west bound, and having had our adventure plans scuppered at the start of March we were determined not to let it happen again.

And how right we were. Though cold, when we arrived at Connel, just short of the bustling ferry port of Oban on the west coast, it was glorious, and not a patch of snow or high winds anywhere. The surrounding high peak mountains tops were capped in snow, but that is usual for this time of year and creates already stunning views into spectacular.

We didn't arrive until early afternoon, so our first day out was just over 20 miles to Glen Duror, which, if you've been following the making of my film about the Ballachulish ferries, will know Glen Duror was the lost ferry I found recently on Mull. So that connection was nice.

There was a bit of a head wind, and added to the fact that I was not only unfit but also exhausted after a hectic week, I struggled to keep up.But the delightful cycle path all the way took my mind of that, and the stunning views all around made the effort all worth while.

Just over halfway we passed the very picturesque, and best preserved example of such, Castle Stalker, sitting proud on a small tidal island. Still in private hands it dates back to the early 1300s.

We were on the Caledonia Way, which is a cycle route that runs from Campbeltown to Inverness, route 78, and the section we were on was perfect, only touching a main road once.

By late afternoon we were heading up Glen Duror, our destination a small bothy connect with a Highland character called James of the Glens. In the mid 1700s he was wrongfully accused of the murder of the chieftain Colin Campbell, aka The Red Fox, in Appin, and was hanged for it. Not lost to history, he makes a cameo appearance in the Robert Louis Stevenson's book, Kidnapped. When James was hung his body was left hanging for 18 months at the south end of Ballachulish ferry as a warning to others clans with rebellious intentions.
I hadn't heard this story, and further research told me that Colin Campbell had just crossed the then Ballachulish ferry in one of its early forms, to serve eviction notices, when two miles down the road he was shot dead. He crossed at the very ferry crossing my new film is all about, so now it feels quite appropriate that we camped near James, wrongly hanged for his murder, on a small hillock at south Ballachulish, right beside the ferry landing. 

We decided to camp beside the bothy, one of his former homes, but the wind was blowing fierce and cold off the mountains resulting in a chilly night despite wearing several layers.

The following day we woke to a cloudless sky, and set off for Ballachulish. Now I was in familiar territory, boring Pauline with my childhood stories.

At Kentallen there was a nice surprise to find a preserved water tower from the days of the old steam trains.

The views were opening up to the north, and as we neared Ballachulish the ridges and mountain peaks of Glencoe started to rise into view.

Past my old childhood home of some 46 years ago, we were aiming for lunch in a coffee shop come gift shop called Craft & Things in Glencoe Village, and would meet up with Kate, the daughter of the last ferryman of the Ballachulish ferries.

Our camp for the night was back down the cycle path, and off into Port Appin. We found what could easily be described as the most beautiful wild camp spot we have ever stayed on. Right next to an unusual rock formation with a large opening though its heart, we had views across to the island of Lismore and mull beyond.

The sunset was stunning, and the afterglow and the appearance of a new moon just farmed the vista perfectly. Though if we though the previous night was cold then this night was arctic! With a cold day and not a cloud in the sky the temperature rapidly fell. I awoke at 2am shivering.

With a leisurely start and gear packed away, once the sun had melted the ice off out tent and bikes, we took the small ferry across to the island of Lismore.

It was another glorious day with hardly a breath of wind. On the island there is just one road, which is only about seven miles long, so there was not a great deal to explore. However, when we alighted the ferry a gentleman who reminded me of the actor Bill Nighy, told us of the most beautiful part of the island, where he happened to live, called Sailean. With no other idea in mind we set off.

Obviously it didn't take long, but as we approached I had my doubts, as the way was along an unpaved road, more akin to the entrance to someones private farm. But, this was the place, and beautiful it certainly was.

By mid afternoon we were aboard the Calmac ferry for the hours crossing to Oban and my train home. Refueled with local fish and chips I bade farewell to Pauline as she continued the adventure and I returned to Edinburgh on the most picturesque railway journey in the UK.

Another great adventure in the saddle.

STICK TO WHAT YOU KNOW

They say every day you learn something new. I'd pretty much agree with that, though in my case "learn" should maybe be changed to "utterly confused by".

I'm in the middle of a major new project, which is top secret for now. All will be revealed later in the year. It's pretty exciting stuff, if not a little scary, but part of the process is creating a website.

Now, what I know about creating a website could be written on the back of a matchbox, or even a postage stamp. I guess it depends how small your writing is. But I know a few people who do know the ins and outs, and they do say, if you are not an expert at something, get someone in.

My contribution is on the creative side; the images and text. But I'm a designers worst nightmare, because I know what I DON'T like, I just don't know what I actually want.

But I will when I see it.

The starting point has been to browse "themes" using something called Wordpress, which I have heard of, which is a good start I thought. Anyway, apparently you can choose a theme, and then alter it to your hearts content. Sounds easy enough, until I entered a word into a search box to find associated themes, and was presented with 763 examples!

And yes, I did look at every single one.

Unfortunately that had the effect of me choosing "anything", just so we could get started. I think my brain just kept looking because my website didn't turn up. Well that's because I haven't created it yet!

Two weeks on and finally, and only because of the saintly patience of the friend who is building it all, we are starting to make progress. Our deadline for launch on the 9 April is looking a tad shakey now though.

New language has entered my world. Phrases like, "static HTML pages" and "Joomla and Drupal database driven content management". Haven't a clue what any of that means but it sure sounds complicated.

It's also fun to watch my friend get excited when a page of code pops up! To me it's just nonsense. Lines of dots, dashes, stars, hash signs and words that are not even words. I take my hat off to anyone who understands that stuff. When I ask if a photos can be made a different size, or a button made a particular colour, I'm told that's easy. Just an alteration to a line of code.

Yeah. Easy!

I think I'll keep in mind what my very first employer told me, after just one week of work, back in 1979: "stick to what you know and leave the rest to us experts".

LIFE IS LIKE A CAMERA

I'm super late with my blog this week, but I have a great excuse . . .

It was my birthday!

So I'll be brief this week as I have cake to eat.

Finally I'm starting to act my age. I find I now make involuntary noises when I bend down to pick something up all the time; my hearing is getting worse; I pretend I've heard what someone has just said when I haven't at all, and I'm most definitely more grumpy about things like poor service and other people in my space. Though to be fair, I think I always have been.

I've never been a birthday party sort of person, and prefer to let it slide by each year unnoticed, except by my closest friends. Somehow though, the word had leaked out at the academy I teach at on a Saturday, and so I was treated to six separate renditions of Happy Birthday by the kids throughout the day. Which was nice.

Presents. Never mind what age I am, presents is always a welcome thing. And I'm very lucky, surround by very caring and generous friends who treat me to breakfast out, or go to great efforts in cooking a nice evening meal just for me, and it is especially nice to have some down time.

Then there's a mini adventure on bikes to look forward to soon, which will be a great break away from the seemingly never ending raft of projects I have going on. It's been full on lately, not least of which has been  taking great strides toward launching my own filmmaking workshops for young people. It has been, and continues to be, a long process, with challenges presented almost on a weekly basis. There's also that nagging fear that it may fail miserably, which then creates doubt about doing at all.

But, this afternoon, after a leisurely wander back from the city, I was chatting to my best friend Pauline, when she found a little wooden, heart-shaped sign, that one of my students had given me back at Christmas. The words written on it seemed rather poignant:

Life is like a camera

Capture the good times

Develop from the negatives

And if things don't work out

Take another shot

POST APOCALYPTIC PORTOBELLO

The Beast From The East, that's what the UK media decided to call it. As it turned out, it was a pretty close description with travel disruption everywhere, few businesses open and most people hunkered down in their houses.

There have been so many negative reports about the winter weather, but at the end of the day it is an annual natural event, just maybe not to focused and wild. I understand some cope less well with it than others, but personally I love it. I even created a mini snowman on the window sill of Pauline's apartment. One person locally was way more creative though and sculpted a full size Moomin character on the beach.

Pauline loves the snowy wintry weather too, and every day, took her daily exercise atop cross country skis. I remember back in December 2009, when the UK was blanketed top to bottom in snow, Pauline skied into work without once having to take her skis off.

The birds in the garden love it less so, and though I loved the look of it, I cleared the accumulated falls every few hours to put out food for them and defrost the bird bath so that had some open water to drink.

Though not a blanket, country covering this time, where the snow has fallen it has done so in larger accumulations than back then. With the added fun of gale force winds, which dropped the temperature to well below freezing, it created another level of challenge. A friend of mine was telling me what what going through his mind when he ventured out on foot one of the days, braving the swirling, howling winds, and whipped up flurries of snow. As he walked across local parks, ankle deep in snow, his thoughts turned to those who would not be able to experience this wonder, for whatever reason, and it made him happy that he was able to do so. For it will be brief, for already a slight thaw has begun.

It was amazing to see very few vehicles on the road. My local high street was coated in a layer of untreated, compacted snow. Even the city's Lothian Buses had cancelled their services entirely for two days, something I've never witnessed before, and most trains were off. But then the improvement in air quality with the lack of emissions is definitely a great benefit. 

Within 24 hours panic buying set in. Local small supermarket shelves started to empty. Now this was daft behaviour, as things are already starting to return to normal, but it did make me think. What if the phenomenon had continued, unabated, for just one week? One of my neighbours told me they normally shop for what they need in the short term, and would run out of food in the house by tomorrow. Because I live on the outskirts of the city, it is easy for me to put on the appropriate clothing and footwear and get access to nearby stores. But what of those in more rural areas, literally snowed in their house?

Because of the panic buying there is now less provision for everyone else. So, just in case, I walked out to a large Asda store not too far from where I live, in the hope of picking up some basics for myself and Pauline. As well as being wrapped up I also wore my ski goggles, as the wind was still whipping up the occasional fine particle blizzard.

On the soles of my boots were miniature crampons, and as I trudged through the drifts, head down against the wind, I felt like Dennis Quaid in The Day After Tomorrow, as he battled through ice and snow to reach his son, Jake Gyllenhaal, buried inside a library in snow-bound New York City, having made him a promise that he would come and rescue him.

In Asda there was pretty much something of everything, but you could see that by the end of today the remaining staples of bread and fresh vegetables would all be gone. Despite dairy cows needing to be milked twice a day, none of it had reached the chillers of Asda. Staff were removing out of day stock, destined for landfill, as, though they had received no deliveries, they had also received far fewer shoppers. Overall though, the shelves looked no different to a usual busy Saturday, albeit that the "healthy" food remained, but the pizzas were all sold out!

Eventually I was back home, and having kicked off the snow from my boots, lifted my goggles, I dropped off a few provisions to Pauline, feeling like a much waited on rescuer. As Dennis Quaid said when he finally reached Jake; "I told you I'd come".