legacy of half nose and cups - lesson for the future?

Looking out from the saluting Battery in Valetta, Malta there is an amazing view and it is a lovely place to examine the oldest part of the city across the harbour.  I spent the day walking around the ramparts examining statues.  By definition they are there as a kind of legacy.  Erected in memory of an event/person/triumph.  However keeping one’s legacy is a tricky business.  Often history is reviewed and re-written the heroes turn out to be villains and vice versa.  Having a big ass statue you’d think would lend itself to a kind of immortality solid against the barrage of the passage of time.  But when revolutions happen statues are often the first to be hauled down.

So these structures embody more than we may at first sight think.  The public is a fickle beast bowing down to leaders and then in a flash hauling their images into the mud. 

There are degrees of course to such things.  Apart from political expressions/regime change etc there is also the sheer stupid vandalism of the ignorant.  I include, in that bracket, the destruction of The Buddhas of Bamiyan.  These were two monumental statues carved into the side of a cliff in central Afghanistan at an altitude of 2,500 meters (8,202 ft). Built roughly 1500 years ago they were dynamited and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban after the government declared that they were idols.  You have to just hold your head and groan at times!

In Malta the vandalism is small scale and vaguely amusing at times.  Note this impressive statue has a MacDonald’s cup carefully positioned.

Nearby the statue of another prone figure has been more abused with the statues nose half removed and his head marked with black pen graffiti.

I suspect we erect such things to claim a legacy and those who damage them are trying to make their own cheap mark in history.  A similar but more extreme mindset is found in those who assassinate the famous to earn their place in Wikipedia.  It has ever been so, small minds with aspirations of greatness.  In their ignorance they often leave behind a legacy of their own mindless destructive urges.  As if the world needs more visual reminders of those both high and low that have nothing to celebrate but the violation of person and place. 

The statues that are worth building are the ones that remind us of the loss of life that war brings or those that highlight persecution and real injustice.  They remind us of just how diabolical we humans can be.  A valuable lesson from history that should fuel our desire for a better future.

Unusual sunbathers

Unusual sunbathers

Prone on the sand

Searching an escape from their lives

I spotted the two on the rocks near the shore

Concerned because they were so still

Roasting in the mid day sun

Skin parboiled like red cabbage

Drunk tourists recovering from a heavy night

Spending the dark hours poisoning their major organs

Now intent on barbequing their largest organ too

Holidays the freedom and time to

Abuse yourself as you see fit,

Sheer fun for one and all

Unusual sunbathers

Prone on the sand

Searching an escape from their lives

My happy cousin timed her meticulous suntan to the minute

Fifteen minutes on front and then back

Even her sides got their blasting

As she perched like soda bread on the griddle

Arms uplifted to let the sun get hidden crevices

“How can something that feels so good be bad for you?”

She’d grin and laugh. Freckled and happy from the sun.

Unusual sunbathers

Prone on the sand

Searching an escape from their lives

Sunbathing, I reckon is the closest

Most people get to meditating

Trapped by the sun’s rays

Made limp by the heat

They close their eyes and are silent for once

Feeling nature work its magic on each pore

Exfoliated by sand, massaged by salty sea water

The fresh air pumps into lungs

Usually office bound

And for that second they are in the moment

Unusual sunbathers

Prone on the sand

Searching an escape from their lives

When a child I would build sand cars

As the tide came in I’d reinforce my bonnet,

Flatten off my front seat

Place shells for speedometers

The feeling of ownership

And pride in construction

Then, I’d sit while the tide came in

Wearing down my sand defences

There was that delightful moment

When the tide encircled

My car became an exquisite boat

Followed by disaster and destruction

Never made any easier by repetition

My sorrow intense

As my creation washed away

Unusual sunbathers

Prone on the sand

Searching an escape from their lives

These refugees risk everything

For a chance

Setting to sea

Paying a fortune

A shot at freedom

Fleeing war, poverty, pain or fear

They set out against the elements

And all sense

On tiny ships ill equipped

Children clasped

The fragrance of hope and salt on their lips

This Mediterranean has become a graveyard

For people who had no choice

But to take a chance

Their bodies washed up on sandy beaches

Weeks later

Bloated symbols of what has been lost

Unusual sunbathers

Prone on the sand

Searching an escape from their lives

Do you ever get sick of yourself?

Do you ever get sick of yourself?

I mean really weary and fed up.

When, if it were anyone else you’d just walk way?

But that’s it, isn’t it.

When it is yourself, there is no escape!

In ancient Greece a young girl committed suicide and suddenly there was an epidemic of copycat suicides among girls her age in the city.  It reached such a pitch that the senate needed to act.  So one elderly senator introduced a law, which stopped the loss of life immediately. 

What was the law?

They introduced a law that if a young woman committed suicide her naked body would be carried through the market place for all to see.  This stopped the dreadful avalanche of death.  Evidently, fear of shame was a fate worse than death. 

So, for dire situations we need effective strategies.  When life takes a deep plunge into despair I have my own technique.  You can tell I am a pessimist from the constant cheery refrain I am prone to reassure myself with, at such times

“However awful life appears, it can always get worse!”

In other words, whatever calamity we face usually there is another one possible that makes the present one seem like a picnic.  For some reason, that calms and soothes my spirit.  Things seem suddenly not so bad at all.

Another positive take is however awful I may be, whatever dreadful deed I may have done/omitted I have a few minutes, hours, months to alter and to make amends.  Making things right is not achieved by silent contemplation of my navel.  No, my worth is probably measured on what my contribution to this world has been, in real terms.

So, being heartily sick of oneself can be a really good thing.  It is the diagnosis of a skilled physician who sees the problem and then seeks the remedy.  Too often we get hung up on the first step.  That honest introspection needs to be followed by action and deeds.

The world is weary of words

We want to see our life mean something

That change we seek within ourselves

Will always be linked with the change

Our lives bring to others.

Perhaps that is why we are still here!

Meetings - the good ones and the rest!

So lovely to watch Charlie meeting my mum and my mum seeing her first great grandson.  He, a matter of months and she with eight decades under her belt.  I know it is because I love them both that I find it all magical on so many levels.  A meeting of souls that transverses age.  Eye to eye, blood of mine, the look that says hello and recognises the wonder of this moment.  In life we have so many meetings, some great, a few sour, occasionally gut wrenching we often lose count of faces and facts.  There are those, who in the words of a famous comedian, in hindsight one should have greeted with

“I spurn you as I would a rabid dog!”

There are others that should have had us on our knees pleading

“I am so grateful for the privilege of knowing you, of being influenced for the better by you”

And others who fall in between, that one could have truly said in that first meeting

“Hello, I’d like to thank you in advance for all the tests, pain and agro you will bring into my life.  Because of it, I grew to know how much sweeter life can be when we learn exactly how to cope with upnoxious, hurtful and disturbed individuals such as yourself!”

That said no one can really know when we first meet anyone what lies ahead.  We cannot guess how damaging or nourishing contact with them will bring us.  We can only recognise that a life of tranquil solitude will teach us little.  We will emerge from the drawer of life like a glove completely unused, brand spanking new.  It is in the wearing and use, the engagement with other souls we truly learn the lessons of life.  We will be stretched beyond our limits, pulled out of shape, moulded anew but we will be forced to adapt and grow in that process.

We are changed by each other every single day.  Those changes are even inherited by our children and grandchildren[1].  These alterations in us are either enjoyed or endured by all who meet us.  So make haste to transform and to be transformed.  Practice makes perfect.

---

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/ghostgenes.shtml

Christmas Blues

Was at school this week in the staff room and the discussion was centred on the preparations for Christmas.  Buying presents, decorating trees, Christmas parties, performances etc.  I mentioned that we did not and have never bought Christmas presents or trees for our children.  There was a horrified silence as if I had regaled them with tales of how I starved my children regularly.  My story had slipped out when I told them of shopping at a supermarket with my youngest, a mere toddler, in the trolley seat with groceries pilled up behind him.  As the shop assistant scanned the items she smiled brightly at my son and asked that usual pre Christmas question.

“And what is Santa bringing you?” 

in a happy confidant tone designed to lift customers spirits with festive joy.

Daniel answered instantly 

“He doesn’t give me anything and never has!”

A horrified uncomfortable silence reigned as she scanned in the remaining items.  The look she gave me was one of shocked surprise that said clearly she wondered what kind of parent was I.

My children were told from an early age that Santa was not real.  That other parents pretended he existed for lovely reasons.   To make their children excited about the Christmas period, to celebrate the birth of Christ, to create a spirit of giving and kindness in families and communities.  We kept stressing that it was a religious festival designed to remind people of the life of Christ and his teachings.  But they missed the whole presents and Santa thing.  The only present they got was one from my parents and boy did that one present mean a lot!

It was a little hard at times when they saw the abundance of gifts showered upon their cousins and neighbours.  But they were surprisingly stoical about it.  Children accept you for what you are, warts and all.  They see you as normal and judge the rest of the world from that baseline. That’s why it is so horrible when we really screw them up.  When we make our nightmare their baseline.

Thankfully our three children, now adults, seem to hold no grudges for all those missing gifts and non-existent Santas.  Which kind of shows how meaningless most of that crap really is.  Indeed, we were careful to tell them, even when toddlers, that on no account should they ruin the illusion of Santa for their friends and school mates. That it would be cruel to steal this illusion when their parents had so carefully cultivated the magic of it year after year.  So when Daniel aged three answered the shop assistant with

            “He doesn’t give me anything and never has!”

I was quite proud that he was careful not to shatter her conviction that Santa was real.  He knew not to announce that,

“Santa does not exist and therefore does not bring me anything.”

He responded with a statement of truth while allowing her to maintain her belief in Santa.  It always amazes me how thoughtful and kind small people can be.  It strikes me that they would not ruffle feathers in staffrooms over Christmas.  I obviously have much to learn!

my take on smoking - a gentle approach to encourage stopping

Trying to get across that smoking is bad for you to my middle school class - may have gone over the top slightly let me know what you think!

Have a look at a healthy lung and a smokers lung - sometimes images speak louder than words.

But what is in these cigarettes? Lets look at an experiment to find out.  It is slightly long so do feel free to fast forward to get the main point of it!  But hopefully those final few images will stay in your head!

Enough of the petty details worldwide how many people are actually being effected?

Somehow figures don't get across the loss of life do they?  We almost need more time to digest the information and set it in context.  After all, people die everyday from a range of causes.  So let's put it all to music and take some time out to digest the facts right now.

Enough said!

Sliema to Valetta by boat and foot - getting lost and finding good stuff

Went for a walk in Valetta today.  First I walked up the hill in Sliema.

The colours of the flowers are amazing and catch the eye.  The houses are equally unusual and even when dilapidated have a presence.

In Malta there are churches at almost every turn, all covered in statues and with often two clocks.  One is set at the wrong time to fool the devil – they say!

The blooms beside a doorway seem too pretty to miss so I do a close up.

Over the hill and I reach the ferries, this is where I catch a boat to Valetta from Sliema.

And as the ferry gets closer the view gets better and better.  I reckon Valetta should always be approached by sea.  The walls are so impressive from water level.

Arriving at Valetta.

Hugging the walls I make my way along the ramparts.

Looking back at Sliema I can see the ferry and where I have come from.

Nature is found even on the bare dry walls.

Now time to climb some stairs and the height of the houses surprises.

Every square meter seems used and the density of living quarters is apparent.The streets become narrow and yet full of life.  This is no museum, but a living city.

Some grand buildings, like the front of this one.

Haven’t a clue where I am going but have time to admire the greenery.

Who cares if they are lost when everywhere interesting streets entice.

Am tempted down one and find myself in the second oldest theatre in Europe.

Even better is the tea room and I take the opportunity to grab a pot of tea and have a well earned break.  I have never experienced this tea room and it is filled with light and has a lovely atmosphere. 

This has to be the loveliest place to chill.  I heartily recommend it!  Sometimes getting lost leads you to the nicest surprises.  Time to head home.  

Charlie Horse playing cards

Came across this video on a camera, which someone had taken while we all played cards together.  I am simply the most un-photogenic person on this planet and it does not bode well that I also have just about the most irritating laugh imaginable.  But I love the way it captures family times when playing cards.

Not one extra prune

My mother and aunt stayed with us on Malta for a glorious two weeks this October.  I luxuriated in their presence.  Their daily routines were fixed.  In the morning after their showers they had breakfast, eating exactly the same thing each day.  A bowl of porridge and five prunes followed by a pot of tea with one slice of wholemeal bread toasted, with butter and marmalade.  Then they would hand wash all their dirty clothes.  My practice of dumping all colours into the washing machine was an anathema to them.  They are of the generation that hand washed, bleached and bullied laundry into blistering white submission – my half grey whites did not do!

The sun here in Malta dried their clothes in a few hours and they delighted in the speed of the whole affair.  Then, after tidying my flat with equal thoroughness and a demanding level of order and neatness they filled their water bottles and headed out for their daily forced march.  They would walk the promenade beside the Med each day, choosing St Julian’s Bay one day from Sliema and then the next heading right towards Valetta.  These walks were no mean feat in the burning sunshine.  They allowed themselves just two breaks during this four-hour marathon.  One was for ice cream cone, or a ‘poke’ as my mum calls it.  

My Mum, with eight decades under her belt, would order their cones with a smile, asking for loads of the white cooling ice cream on top.  God bless the Maltese café staff who universally responded with unrestrained generosity filling the two small cones to abundant heights.  The happiness with which these two grandmothers/great grandmothers devoured their treat had to be seen.  With two hours of walking in the baking heat it felt like a life saver and their toes practically curled in delight at the delicious coolness.

Then on for another two hours of walking and chatting.  These two have so many memories to share, so much news to tell and experiences to debrief they talk non-stop for the whole two weeks.  Listening to them chatting away from their beds to each other until they fell asleep was the best background music to have.

The second pit stop is for a large cappuccino and they have by now found the best cafés to stop at.  

Not only the café but also they also have a favourite table near the door from where they can observe the world go by.  My aunt has an eye for detail.  Noticing people who chew with their tongues out, peculiar gaits, unusual hairstyles or fashions ensembles.  She notices everything and views the entire spectacle with excited voyeurism.  This is fortunate, as my mother sees nothing.  She is a ‘starer off into space’, happy in her own skin and head with a coffee mug held tight in delight.  So this unusual team works well.  My aunt points out what my mother would have missed and my mother restrains her sister from tucking in shirt tails, turning down labels that stick up and generally rearranging the hairdos of complete strangers.

I tease them because they do not vary their routine.  Not one extra prune, not one different flavour of ice cream ventured, not even their footwear has changed in the last few years.  But they are happy, fit and in great shape.  Their laughter and giggles filled the flat and our lives from the moment they arrived until they disappeared into the departure lounge in the airport on the way home.

So if anyone happened to see me standing at Malta International Airport last week waving and sobbing at two elderly ladies while tears tripped down my face try to understand.  Such people burrow into your heart and letting them go is akin to open-heart surgery.

My 9 Favourite Pastimes

1. Still Game.  A wonderful series set in a run down estate in Scotland populated with aging characters.  Doesn't sound uplifting or funny but it is.  Watched the whole series and mourn the fact that there are no more new ones to watch.  Here is one of my favourite episodes, just love how even wallpaper can roll back the years for us all. 

2. Lie To Me

This is a modern series about a company that specialises in reading the micro_expressions that speak the lies we tell.  It wears a little thin after a while but love the idea and how it is executed here. It is not on youtube, but keep you eyes open for this one

 3.  Rummycube – one of my favourite games at present.  This game depressingly reminds me how slow my brain has become.  Other players shout how long I take when it is my turn.  It is just the speed my brain is at present.

4. Swimming in the Med – there is a feel good factor about being the sea that swimming pools cannot compete with.  Is it the salt, the odd jellyfish or the waves that I occasionally swallow?  Don’t know but it hits the spot.
5. Café Frappe – coffee and ice in a blender, make my own and drink half pints of the stuff.  Addiction is a terrible thing!

6.  New Scientist – a wonderful magazine that I enjoy vicariously via my brother, usually three months out of date.

7.  Good friends to laugh with and sit at cafes with.  Here in Malta, like the Med elsewhere you can sit for hours out front with one cup.  Easily the cheapest outing and yet brilliant fun!

8.  Visiting and being visited by loved ones – I shall not name each one but they know who they are!

9.  Earning money writing – of all the things I do, this writing business earns me no money and yet I have a dream of doing what I love and being paid for the same.  One must have dreams right?

PS And yours? 

PPS cannot delete the 4 below, so please ignore this gremlin - it means nothing. 

codes of behaviour - the mob!

Your Perspective can change quickly.  I can remember sitting in this café with a sore back and the effort required to lean even 5 degrees forward or backward was akin to a cheese grater on my spinal column.  I bought the same drink I have now and even sat at the same table but I could no longer smell the coffee, notice the waiter’s welcoming smile or even see the people with whom I was sitting.  My field of vision was restricted to a portion of my lower back and its surrounding nerve endings.  Each movement had to be planned in advance to prepare for the forthcoming pain.  I grew to recognize these pre pain signs, sweat to the brow and upper lip, a tightening of the stomach muscles and a roll of the shoulders as if to accomplish the required adjustment by means of the upper body alone.  People stare at you when you do such odd affected motions.  They cannot help themselves. 

Perhaps it is a lingering memory of the pack we once were.  Such movements would signal ill health, weakness, frailty and an urge to turn on the weakest pack member stirs within all the rest.  Nature’s way of strengthening the pack.  Not only killing off a substandard member but providing, by eating them, useful nutrients to the rest.  In such a win win situation pack members would be assiduous about noticing limps, stiffness, poor skin or coat health.  Of course, turning on a weakened pack member also insures that you, yourself do not become a victim.  Finding a weaker member, other than yourself, is therefore a sensible strategy.  It is thought that this self-protection lies at the heart of mob psychology. 

It has long been noted that groups of people in mobs have a communal morality much lower than any individual member.   They will tear you limb for limb, stone you to death, happily lynch and set fire to you when perversely not a single individual on their own would sanction such gross atrocities.  So what is it that makes such a discrepancy in codes of behaviour. 

The answer lies in the mobs first act of violence.  Once it is taken each member of the mob knows there is a definite possibility that the mob could turn on them just as easily.  What can they do to prevent such an outcome?  They must out do the first violence, up the anti so to speak.  By this means they prove their loyalty to the pack, keep the rage targeted on some one other than themselves and in doing so trigger an ever ascending spiral of atrocity in others for the exact same reasons.  This fuels the final carnage. 

So sad that many leaders of thought, idealists and innocent have fallen victim to the mob’s senseless selfish violence.  Perhaps it has ever been so, survival of the fittest and all that?  But, I like to think that ideals and truths also have strengths that persevere despite the mob’s advantage of numbers.  That the actions and words of brave noble people echo across the millennium and will out last and outshine the foul deeds lesser minds devise.

Forfucksake Sam

Sam couldn't remember exactly when he was renamed Forfucksake Sam but it seemed now to be a constant prefix for everyone in the kitchen who spoke to him.

“Forfucksake Sam, get those dishes washed we going down on the Titanic here!”

Or when the manager shouted, “Forfucksake Sam, we need those bins emptied and cleaned pronto!”

Even when being kind, the chef would say

“Forfucksake Sam, there’s a burger for your lunch on the counter.”

Sam grew to ignore the implied insult and just treated it as a title of sorts.  It was bloody hard being a kitchen porter and physically it pushed him to limits that were way beyond name-calling.  Standing at a station washing dishes for eight hours made his backache until his arm muscles grew strong enough to cope.  Having his hands in soapy water so long had caused eczema and it wouldn’t clear.  His doctor warned him that it would be a chronic condition if he didn’t stop.  His fingers were like huge red inflated sausages with dry skin flaking off all over. 

When he examined them at night and covered them in cortisone cream they seemed not to belong to him at all.  They gave the impression of strange appendages that had been grafted on along with the title Forfucksake.  Some shifts he would find himself holding his mouth in a peculiar way, off to one side and twisted shut.  As if there were words he wanted to shout but had to hold him in at all costs by this pursed contortion.  He passed the floor manager screaming at a waitress on the stairway, and as the manager screamed abuse the waitress cried, head bowed weeping huge monstrous tears over a face young and raw like juicy meat.  Sam had wanted to intervene but passed saying nothing, this, like the deformed hands and his title Forfucksake, was another symptom of his new persona.  

At odd moments he found himself examining himself when shaving as if to try and find the person he was before this killing year in the hotel as a kitchen porter.  When he looked in his eyes he saw a broken figure looking back, weary and watchful for the next unexpected deformity to appear, mentally or physically.  He was watchful over himself and others.  You had to be in the kitchen, there was hot oil, burning gas hobs and perhaps more dangerous than all, the cleaning fluid.  To clean the deep fryers you had to use almost neat acid and it got everywhere.  Even his lungs seemed filled with the toxic stuff after a long shift-scrapping gunk from deep within the bowels of the machine.  Some nights he coughed long and hard and wondered if the lining of his lungs matched his grotesque fingers. 

But he liked his fellow workers.  They were an odd bunch but real.  The alcoholic cleaner from Albania, the Afghan chef, missing an ear, the Philippino waiter who minced into the kitchen swinging in time with the music.  The laughter was constant in between the shouting and Forfucksake Sam knew that what you saw was what you got.  In the relentless work load of the kitchen there was no energy for fabrication or pretence.  You worked until you dropped, you could not maintain anything under veils of restraint and tack.  It felt raw but genuine.  When the load was quiet, a rare event, they’d put the music on and each would do a small gig at their station in time to the music.  A moment of abandonment and celebration of life.  They would give each other advice and Sam grew used to “Forfucksake Sam, this is no life, you need to get the hell out of here!”  He saw evidence of kindness too, Forfucksake Sam give me the other handle of that, you’ll break your back!”  It seemed that words mattered not a jot.  Deeds counted and when your arms ached like pulled teeth all became clear.  People are not what they say, thought Sam, they are what they do.  Of every second of every day they show you what they are made of.  Forfucksake Sam realised that even his title had been earned on this odd battlefield of a kitchen.  

Corridor and playground conversations

The PE teacher at my son’s school in Greece was going through a rough time.  Every break time he would tell my son another installment of the bitter divorce he was going through.  It was a kind of debriefing and my nine-year-old son drank in the whole sorry tale.  How love can turn to hate.  What women can say and do to make your life miserable. 
How betrayal colours not just how you see the world but even yourself.  Custody battles, court hearings, his hatred for his in-laws, this plot was as twisted as any soap opera.  My son loved it and looked forward to the next installment.  Being new to the school and a foreigner my son was lonely and having these conversations let him see that suffering was universal not just his own lot in life.  It came at exactly the right time and I hope on some level having a listening ear helped Mr Anastasis too.

As one of my sons, Lewis, walked along a school corridor a heavy set teacher, middle-aged and built like a barn, no neck, half shaven with a smoker’s hack stopped him and said,

“Never long for any day, any moment but this day and this time.  Enjoy this second.  Remember this and you will have a happy life!”

Decades later Lewis, as best man, shared this with wisdom at his brother’s wedding and I feel grateful to this insight from an unlikely source.

Burning Shoes and Stuff

There was a young bored sports teacher covering a class for a colleague in Rhodes, Greece.  He noticed some loose threads on his trainers while he sat cross-legged.  He tried pulling them loose but they were made of tough nylon reluctant to be parted from his shoe.  Inspired he pulled out his cigarette lighter and burned it off in a flash.  Turning his attention to his other trainer he repeated his earlier success.  Unfortunately, in his eagerness to complete the task he managed to set fire to the material and the shoe began to burn.  He used the class register to beat the flames out while my son sat mesmerised by this unexpected entertainment in his classroom.

We had a chemistry teacher we nicknamed ‘Sexy Sam’.  In the sad cruel ways of teenagers he was as far from sexy as we could imagine.  The ironic title stuck and spread.  The class tell tale after some months squealed to the teacher his new name.  For weeks after we endured the nauseating spectacle of a preening ‘Sexy Sam’ convinced he was the object of longing to the upper sixth.  He made renewed efforts to live up to his heady title and began wearing lurid silk shirts and skintight trousers.  He was renamed ‘Seedy Sam’ and held this title for ten years.  Teenagers hold and perpetuate grudges big time!

Like sea water they aid healing

Today my son, Daniel went swimming off the coast near our flat in Malta.  I watched frankly worried from the shore.  I dislike big waves when swimming.  Instead of feeling you are deciding your direction and pace in the water a greater force dictates, unseen with considerable power.  I wonder is it the lack of control or lack of power over this medium that disturbs.  My son has no such qualms and will do his swim sun, rain or hail.  After a day working indoors he is longing for the freedom of the waves and sea.  For many, the daily swim almost acts as a form of necessary therapy for body, spirit and mind.  There may be even some anecdotal evidence for this.

It is said, “Navy SEALS even say that if they have a scrape or cut, they know that being in the sea water will clean them up and speed up the healing process.”

Ancient Egyptians apparently, used salt water for stomach ulcers and external skin injuries.  Of course there is also Hippocrates from 460 BC – c. 370 BC who was a strong believer in salt water’s usefulness…

“Hippocrates, also known as Father of Medicine, concocted multiple cures using saltwater to heal cuts, scrapes, and even more serious skin injuries. He also used saltwater for internal problems, such as ulcers of the mouth or stomach. Hippocrates became interested in exploring the healing powers of saline after he observed how quickly fishermen’s hands and other minor skin injuries healed after exposure to seawater.”

“The Romans treated stomach ulcers and digestive problems with the solution by preparing drinks for their patients. They also made ointments to treat skin injuries, and had patients bathe in the solution to clear up skin diseases and combat itching and inflammation...effectively recommending saltwater as a primary medicinal for skin care and common skin problems.”

I don’t know if is true but I remember being told Alexander the Great urged his wounded solders to bath in the sea and dry in the sun to heal wounds.  Given these days were all long before antibiotics the sea was probably a reasonable option if you had an open wound, ripe for infection.

World War aircraft crash victims who went down in the sea strangely healed better than burn victims on land.  It is not just humans who have benefited from the magic of water treatments.  Hydrotherapy is used in veterinary clinics up and down the country where it allows animals, especially post operative, to strengthen muscles when weight bearing is too much.

Perhaps there is something deep in our psychic about being from the sea originally?  After all, our ancestors crept ashore millions of years ago before evolving into land animals.  Who knows, but I do love water enough to feel genuinely horrified when adults announce they cannot swim.  It feels so unfair that they have missed out on this delightful therapeutic experience.

My son is talking to a Greek man on the rocks with his two small daughters playing at his side.  All my sons speak Greek with a distinctive Rhodes island twang, as they were brought up there, and it is a very strong dialect indeed.   The man seems overjoyed to find a native Greek speaker on a Maltese shore so far from home and they rattle away their own language.  

He tells Daniel all about his life.  Working in a small family owned business for decades.  Of how he met and married a tourist. Then he spoke of the dreadful economic situation in Greece at present that saw him lose his business and turn his home into a liability rather than an asset.  Of his separation from his wife.  Then he holds up his hands asking,

“What did I do wrong?  I couldn't have worked any harder. I never cheated anyone.  I love my family more than my life!”

He stops and stares at the sea shaking his head at the mystery of it all.  Then he continues,

“It's wreaking even village life in Greece, everyone is having to leave to work abroad, to earn money.  Only the old are left, alone.  It is all changing.”

He describes in fast Greek, how he works in Germany and Malta, wherever a job comes up.  Desperate to make progress but aware that he is barely afloat financially these days.  He says. 

“  I had my own business in Greece and was good at it.  I made something good of my life.  I did, I really did.”

Then he turns his palms heavenward and explains,

“Now, I try and get hotel jobs, any jobs.  Just any work to support my family.  I’m not giving up, but I do want to understand what happened.”

They talk for an hour of politics, world affairs, Greek village life (which they both adore) football and even Greek history and language.  His two small daughters, half German and half Greek, speak perfect Greek and tell Daniel stories they know by heart.  The tales of heroes and villains and great deeds from Greek mythology, as their father smiles proudly.

Then as they part Kostas, hugs Daniel to his chest as you would a dear brother and wishes both of us well.  There is a sweetness about Greeks that takes the breath away when they open their heart to you.  Even in their pain, you somehow gain.  Like sea water they aid healing.

Things that should never have happened and the lessons learned

1. A certain brother of mine who at age 18 got a certain part of his anatomy caught in his zip and the end of the saga involved a trip to hospital and eight nurses working to free him from those mechanical torture implements.

LESSON 1 "sometimes the biggest dangers are the closest"

2. Me trying to retrieve a ball blowing out to see at the beach.  Was worried my sons would swim out too far, so threw on swimsuit (bikini) and swam quickly after it.  Returned to the shore and walked up the beach wondering why the bikinis bottoms which were red suddenly looked black.  Had put my leg in the waist bit and was exposing my nether regions!

 LESSON 2 "Beware of hasty decisions that bring about untold humiliation"

3. My Dad on being told to put on a robe back to front in the cubicle at hospital,  didn't see the paper folded gown, and clambered into a pink dressing gown hanging behind the door and carefully put it on backwards as instructed. 

 LESSON 3 "Don't just follow directions, think things through"

4. Our neighbourhood dog would chase cats all day.  But there were two who refused to run.  Jack would run full pelt and then spotting they were not running would rapidly change direction at the last moment and pretend he was racing to pee against a car wheel.  His embarrassment was tangible.  Unfortunately, his eyesight was not good and he could not distinguish the runners from the fighters until he got really close.

LESSON 4 "When humiliation beckons fools cover it up by being busy"

  

5. I had a dog Chance who has appeared in three documentaries in N. Ireland.  All involved rough estates in Ballymena, Larne and Coleraine.  the TV crews obviously thought he, with his half chopped tail and mongrel look, was exactly the backdrop they wanted in their exposé of down and out places.

  

LESSON 5 "Sometimes you are just what the world is after!"

6. When my son was a baby having his hips checked by a doctor he peed and the doctor backed away and managed to avoid being soaked.  He turned to me and smiled saying, “He nearly got me then!”  At which point the baby did the most incredible runny poo which shot out jet like and covered the whole front of the doctor’s white pristine coat.

LESSON 6  "The young have unexpected capacity"

7. There is a toilet in the library in Coleraine in N. Ireland that has a handle that you pull up to lock.  Unfortunately, the handle only appears to lock on occasions and I have two friends who once seated and about their business found the door swinging open to an entire library full of appalled people.

LESSON 7 "Just when you thing life can't get any worse, it does"