Old House - breaking and entering

There is an old house in the centre of Sliema on Malta.  I have always been curious about it, lying as it does completely neglected in the midst of modern towers and shops.  A stone's throw from the beautiful shore it lies locked and over grown.  But, as I've walked past on many occasions I've wondered about what lies beyond the locked gate.  Today, I explored and got a few photos of the secret garden and house.  The google map image shows you the position of the house.

From the main road all you see is a locked gate and fence.  Sticking my camera through the bars I get a glimpse of the rubbish that has gathered in the garden.

The fence between the posts has thick chainmail on it, so getting a view of the house itself between overgrown trees and bushes involved me clambering up a small wall and hanging over the top with my arm outstretched and clicking the camera.  Unfortunately, I couldn't look through the viewfinder and do this hence the haphazard nature of my camera work.

The house is two storey with gardens on both levels and a bridge over the lower garden to the front door.  Not that my camera picked this up.  I was just lucky I was seeing bits of the house through the wilderness.

I'd be a hopeless spy.  My hanging onto the gates and clicking was made more difficult by a fading battery which kept closing down the camera, just when I got a half decent shot.

From my glimpses through the trees I could make out a lovely house which nature has reclaimed.

At one stage the gardens would have been magnificent, even now they remind one of a secret garden hidden away for years from public eye.

Thought I'd got a good shot here, but just got the tree!

This was better and by hanging on to the top of the fence balanced precariously I got this view.  Worryingly, a few tourists were stopping beneath me on the pavement curious about this plump woman hanging over a six foot high fence above them.

I care not what people think!  The joy of being mid fifty is that you have left behind the dreadful self consciousness of youth and the self absorption of the forties.  But I am tiring of getting only tiny glimpses of the beauty which lies here before me.

Blasted battery failed me again.  James Bond never had to deal with such petty things.  A man below asks concerned, "Are you stuck up there?"

I answer politely, "No, I am fine!"  He is reluctant to move on and by now there are five of them below, a crowd is gathering and that brings others.  Several are pointing up at me and others come from across the road to see what is going on. 

Bloody busybodies people are so nosey!  Mind you speaking of nosy, here am I hanging over someone else's property clicking like mad.  Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

I get down and decide to try the back of the premises.  I am now sounding like a burglar, I notice.  I go through a parking yard, the combination lock was intimidating, but someone had left the gate ajar.  So I was able to step over a small wall into the rough back end of the garden.

At one stage this must have been an outdoor bar area but nature has taken over and trees grow behind the counter.  It reminds one that without us cities would soon look very different.

At last a view of the house from behind!  I feel I have risked life and limb to catch this glimpse.

Perhaps, at one stage the house had a tennis court in its gardens? All is broken and in bad shape.  But at least I can see the large windows at the back now.

I am having to clamber over rubble to get a better look.

This outhouse has seen better days.

From behind the huge apartment blocks loom over the lovely house.

The garden at the back is still lovely, despite all these years of being unattended.

That huge window must light up the whole back of the house bringing the garden into the upper floor.  And here it lies unseen and forgotten.  I am so glad to discover this house and despite not getting all the way in feel a sense of achievement.  What a good way to spend a Saturday morning.  Also, slightly relieved I didn't break an ankle or fall in between two boulders and have to saw an arm off to free myself.  At this age one learns to be grateful for the weirdest things!

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” ― Marcus Aurelius

My aunt and my Mum visited me on Malta again this April and as usual bowled me over with their laughter and good natures.  In their eighties, (or there about) it was their toughness that struck me this time.  The young tend to think of themselves as indestructible and drive too often like lunatics.  As if death was a far off fictional destination.  The elderly, who have lived a long full life, have suffered bereavement, ill health and pain the young cannot imagine.  They look back on decades of experiences, good and bad.  Their hindsight encompasses so many highs and lows.  The tumultuous adolescent is like a crawling baby to them and middle-aged angst akin to a long forgotten skin infection.  Death is on their map.  My father used to say that the grim reaper had reached his field.  He is no stranger; they've encountered this foe many times.  Their familiarity with what it means, breeds in them not recklessness but determination.  Battled hardened troops, they buckle on their weapons, check their gear, keep a watchful eye on their surroundings and for hidden land mines around.  They are appalled by the ignorance of the raw recruits they see on every side.  Who have not experienced the heat of real battle but preen and boast of future endeavours.  These veterans don’t waste energy boasting.  They've seen it all!  Begun to know themselves, their own bravery or cowardice.  The bits of themselves and those loved ones left on battlefields decades ago.  They hug their maimed limbs monitoring for new sores not old.  Watchful but not defeated.

I decide to take them to my school on Malta.  We caught a bus for it is a good forty-minute walk away and I showed them the three buildings.  The high School section of the school resembles a hobbit village.  It is a former barracks and is in the shape of a hexagon with a deep moat all around. The buildings are set into the ground, hence the hobbit look, but were designed not to look cute but to hide the establishment from bombers from above.  Circular buildings of old sandstone and little courtyards with benches under trees abound.  Plenty of lovely corners for teenagers to hang out and chat with their friends.  The surrounding moat gives the High School a secluded secret garden appeal and the only access is via a single bridge over the moat. 

The Middle School is across the road and despite its age has a dignified grandeur.  Beside it sits the Elementary School, a separate building with colourful play areas.  My aunt and mum are pleasantly surprised by the school, it is not what they expected.  The art exhibition of the school is running and I decide to let them check out the student’s artwork.  In a large hall, all the students from elementary to high school have decorated the walls, tables and stands with their creations.  During the week each class takes turns to man the exhibition.  They have been carefully drilled to show guests around.  Our guide is around eight or less and is barely up to our waists.  But eager to engage and be our guide.  He stands straight and shows us his own painting of the sun and planets.  Anxious that we look at his work and not others he points precisely at his own masterpiece and announces,

“And this is mine! Not the blue one, that one there.”

Andy directs our attention.  My mother a primary and secondary teacher for all of her life switches instantly into teacher mode after a mere twenty years of retirement.

“Can you name all the planets?” she challenges.

Andy shakes his shoulders and gamely recites eight planets but Saturn appears three times in his list.  My mother explains to him our family method for remembering the order of the planets from the sun.

Maurice (mercury) vomits (Venus) every ((earth) morning (Mars) just (Jupiter) slowly (Saturn) until (Uranus) night (Neptune) prevails (Pluto).

Sadly, Pluto has been removed from the list of planets since our rhythm was devised!  Maurice my eldest brother was a sickly child so the rhythm made a lot of sense to us all.  It feels unfair though, now that he is in his sixties and a professor, for Andy to be reciting his sickly past.  Once he’s got it, Andy drags my mother to the pottery table.  He is mesmerised by her ability to really listen and yet also to challenge him too.  He shows her his pottery pig/elephant/dragon (I must confess I was not sure which) and she asks him how he made it.  Putting it in her hands he explains he used a ‘pinch pot’ technique.  After hearing the method my mother places the pottery piece carefully back in the middle of a sea of pigs/elephants.  Andy leans over and carefully readjusts his pig turning it a fraction.  Obviously, even placing work in a display is an artistic business not to be trusted to amateurs!  Another small boy wants to show his pig to my mother but Andy will have none of it.  Grabbing her by the arm he leads her over to a wall of colourful volcanoes.  He wants her to look at only his, but cannot reach his own work high on the wall above and so spends some anxious moments checking she is looking at his masterpiece.  It has red triangles spouting down its slopes and Andy told us all he knew about volcanoes.  Then once he had run out he checked again, very concerned.

“Which one are you looking at?”

My mother dutifully pointed to the red one and answered,

“It’s that one isn't it?”

Andy wriggled in delight and in the silence of our contemplation of his work found new inspiration,

“When ~I was painting it I was thinking about…” and here he imitated the sounds of a volcano erupting.  It went on for a few dramatic minutes, the full soundtrack accompanied with arms gesturing upwards and then down.

I began to feel our guide to the exhibition was a unique little character indeed.  Perhaps, my only criticism was his desire to show us only his handiwork.  But then again, which artist, if he is really honest, does not feel the same in his heart, “All the other artists can go hang!”

All too soon we had to leave and Andy just did not want his audience to go.  Reluctantly, we thanked our guide, the teachers manning the table and began to leave the hall.  Unfortunately, one of my guests (I have promised to not to say which one) tripped over the edge of the top of the ramp at the exit and fell flat on her back from a height of three steps.  I was horrified!  I have a dear elderly friend who manages to break her wrist just cleaning windows.  Running to her side I told her to lie still and see she how she felt.  Her embarrassment overcame any pain and she wanted to get up immediately and go.  Terrified of a broken leg/hip or ankle, it was a huge fall, I called for a chair and glass of water.  Carefully, we lifted her onto the chair and she drank a sip of the water.  Despite my urging her to rest, she was determined to stand and walk and she got to her feet and tested her legs.  She pronounced herself fine and I could see with relief she could stand and walk.  I found myself crying in gratitude that she was unhurt and hugged her close.  That slow motion turning and twisting gigantic fall and hard smack on the tiles was burnt on my retina and heart.  Suddenly, from across the room ran Andy who threw his arms around my relative and pressed his face against her waist.  It was so unexpected and so genuine, so filled with love and concern, we were all stunned,  Small people can blow you away with their capacity to love.  Both my aunt and mother insisted on walking the whole way home and as I paced behind these sisters I felt the privilege of knowing their strength and resilience.  Their capacity to deal with pain and shrug it off.  The next day when I was teaching Andy’s class computing in elementary his first question when he came into the class was,

“How is the nice lady?  Is she okay?  I was very worried about her!”

My breath is taken away by his loving concern.  The old and the young are a privilege to have around.  Their hearts are both huge and intense.  The former because they have exercised it so much and the latter because theirs is brand spanking new, just out of the box.

The Laws of Change

Newton's first law of motion "the law of inertia".

There is a natural tendency of objects/people to keep on doing what they're doing. All objects/people resist changes to their state

Samuel was usually terrified of the slamming door.  It signalled his brother was home and in a foul temper.  There was only twelve months between the two but Jacob, the older, dominated by his aggressive nature.  When they were small, Samuel had grown accustomed to the nips and smacks that rained down his from his sibling.  There seemed no reason for the attacks but they were certainly triggered by his parent’s absence from the room. Jacob’s courage grew with the years and Samuel felt a line being crossed when, under the table or behind the sofa, he was attacked even when his parents were in the room.  His howls of anguish would provoke sighs, as his parents would lift Samuel and sooth his pinched/smacked skin by rubbing it gently and kissing it better.  This did no good, as it was the injustice of his elder brother’s abuse that scared and upset Samuel.  He could cope with the attacks, unprovoked as they were but it was his parents seeming ability to overlook his brother’s guilt that rankled.  His attempts to fathom their responses had involved many stages.  At first, when they were toddlers his parent’s had mouthed to each other the same word in response to Jacob’s aggression.  At primary school, Samuel had recognised the word ‘jealous’.  Every action of Jacob, it appeared to him, was permitted because of his brother’s dark jealousy.  In Samuel’s mind this word seemed to give his brother a secret freedom to mistreat him.  Even worse it engendered towards Jacob, from his parents, an attitude of loving appeasement no matter how dire the consequences for Samuel.

Try as he could Samuel never understood why Jacob was allowed to hurt him so continually and with little no consequence for his actions.  It was at school he realized other older children were much nicer than his brother.  In the playground they were protective of the smaller children and Samuel had actually cried when he realised that others were not like his brother.  It was only then he grasped there was something wrong with Jacob.  He hid the knowledge from everyone, even himself.  Wanting to deny the inevitable conclusion that Jacob was just bad.  Over the years Samuel developed coping strategies.  He learned that having other children around to play protected him from his brother.  Not screaming or showing pain when attacked seemed to reduce Jacob’s satisfaction.  Samuel dug deep into his reservoirs of patience and stamina to cope.  He grew astute at reading his brother’s moods.  He never relaxed in his brother’s presence but he learned to pretend like his parents that Jacob was normal.

As Samuel’s social skills grew it seemed Jacob regressed.  The older brother sulked, shouted at his parents and had explosive temper tantrums.  His parents had stopped mentioning jealousy instead they spoke of  ‘marriage problems’ being the explanation.   This frightened Samuel more than his brother’s attacks.

Newton's second law of motion

Heavier objects/problems require more force to move the same distance as lighter objects/problems.

Having learned coping strategies to deal with his brother it had never occurred to him that his parent’s marriage might be the next victim of his brother’s actions.  Sensitive to the shifts in mood within the home he saw how his parents rarely spoke to each other now.  They used to walk hand in hand on long walks but now they seemed to take turns with the children.  Operating as a tag team to cope with all the difficulties.  As Samuel watched their growing coldness his fear grew. 

Much of his childhood had passed with acceptance of his lot but as things worsened at home Samuel felt something unravel inside him.  He disliked his brother.  It seemed to have happened suddenly.  He could even remember the moment there was a sea change.  He was walking with together his father and Jacob along a towpath.  His father was distracted but forced himself to engage with his two sons.  Samuel hated it, sensed his father ached to be elsewhere.  He grew quiet aware that even this his favourite walk would not heal the atmosphere.  Samuel noticed that Jacob was throwing stones into the canal, huge handfuls of stones raining down on the still water.  His actions were as usual aggressive and frantic as if he might not be able to create enough splashes.  Samuel slide his hand into his father’s quietly.  His father said nothing but squeezed his son’s hand in response.  It felt good and Samuel remembered a thousand kindnesses from his dad.  All the hugs and bedtime stories, games and long walks.  All the discussion, questions answered and the endless patience and love.  He wanted to find the words to put all these feelings into one expression but couldn’t.  He also wanted for the first time to tell him of all the bullying.  How often Samuel had wept into his pillow at the hopelessness of his situation.  He wanted to tell him so he could explain why it was so.  Samuel needed to understand this one point more than anything.  Jacob was screaming as he threw stones higher and further.  Samuel decided he had nothing to lose and told his father,

“You know there is something wrong with Jacob, don’t you?”

His father, to his horror, began to cry.  Huge fat tears streamed down his face and he had hugged Samuel to his chest tightly.  While in his ear he had explained to Samuel,

“Your Mum and I are not getting on.  I don’t want you to blame yourself or your brother about this.  We both love you so much and always will!”

Samuel knew then that nothing he said would fix this.  He looked over his father’s shoulder at Jacob who was now throwing stones at a family of ducks.  His parents would never see what he saw.  They couldn’t because parents loved too much.  And in that second almost before he knew he loved his brother, he stopped loving him.  It was as if a shutter had come down in his heart and it allowed his mind much more clarity.  Without emotion he could take real action.

Newton's third law of motion

This means that for every force/effort there is a reaction/resistance force that is equal in size, but opposite in direction.

The next day while out in the garden Samuel drew close to Jacob.  His mother was in the kitchen, which looked out over the garden.  Samuel got in between Jacob and the window with his back to the house.  Tapping his brother on the shoulder Samuel waited until Jacob turned and then taking his own hand smacked himself as hard as he could across the face.  The blow was hard and he roared in genuine pain.  Within a second his mother was cradling him, comforting him.  Sam did not accuse Jacob just hugged his mother sobbing.  It helped considerably that Jacob went into a temper tantrum claiming quite rightly that Samuel had hit himself.  He was not believed and yet apart from comforting Samuel his mother said nothing.  It had ever been so but Samuel felt the difference.  He was running this show and everything had changed.  They just didn’t know it.  Later that evening he gave himself a hard pinch on the arm just below his tee-shirt sleeve.  The next day at school it was vibrant and visible on his arm.  His teacher noticed it at once, as he had hoped, and asked him about it.  He had told her he had fallen.  It was so obviously a pinch mark she’d not believed him.  He understood that adults didn’t hear what you said they liked to work things out themselves.  You could not tell it straight they wouldn’t have believed it.  His parent’s continued as normal to comfort him and not confront Jacob.  Samuel hadn’t expected them to behave differently.  His whole life had been like this and yet it all felt different now. 

Perversely, the only one to notice the change was his brother, Jacob.  So eager was Samuel to trigger another blow from his brother he’d ceased to be afraid.  Jacob found it unnerving and perversely tried to avoid his younger brother.  Samuel had to plan harder.  In the bedroom he’d been beside his brother playing Lego.  Talking to his brother and trying to engage him in conversation.  Jacob had been sullen and withdrawn but Samuel had pretended to swallow a tiny brick and drawn his brother closer.  Reaching up to his own face Samuel had scratched a long mark on this cheek close to his eye.  As tiny bubbles of blood erupted along the scratch mark, Jacob had gasped and drawn back disbelief apparent on his normally sullen face.  Samuel held his hand to his face and was silent.  Jacob started to cry and that’s where his father found them.  Samuel staunching the wound on his face while Jacob cried beside him. 

It was a defining moment for the family.  The teacher had filed a report about the marks on Samuel’s arm and now this very visible scratch so close to vulnerable eyes made action imperative.  Counselling was arranged through the school and there, professionals were quick to realise that although Samuel got on with other children his brother did not.  Very quickly, his parents were informed that Jacob would be tested by a school psychologist.  The first counsellor was useless; a young woman straight out of training she urged the youngster to talk to her but did nothing else.  Fortunately, a psychiatrist did a follow up visit with a battery of tests and quickly showed that Jacob suffered from Klinefelter Syndrome and a lack of basic communication skills.  Once the issue had been identified everyone seemed to unite to address things.  The school rose to the challenge and more importantly his parents found a new respect and tenderness for each other that surprised them both.  Samuel felt a load lifted from his shoulders and during long Lego building sessions with his brother felt differently towards him.  Not love, not yet but an odd growing protective feeling towards Jacob that surprised and made their future seem much brighter.

  

head-butting my grandson

Here is Charlie my grandson a few months ago being sung to by his mum.  Just love the connection between mum and baby.  So sweet to share these moments.  Not like my last online Skype call with Charlie.  My son was holding his iPad above Charlie and I was talking to my grandson in the UK face to face, when suddenly the iPad fell out of the holder and hit Charlie on the forehead a hard blow.  The iPad was ignored on the floor while the baby was comforted and I on Malta was now aware that as far as Charlie was concerned his granny had just head butted him!  Felt so awful and guilty despite there being nothing I could have done to prevent it.  Such are the dangers of the virtual world.  Instead of sweet nothings you inflict damage.  Sigh…….