Here Comes the Sun tra la la la!

Yay... finally, I can look outside and see the sun! What joy it was yesterday, to go out for work (yes, I work on Saturday mornings) at 8.30 am, for once, not in a soul-less, unfriendly darkess tinged with grey skies and dark clouds!

I really, really don't like winter and just cannot understand people here who say they love it. I mean, what's to love? First and foremost, it's cold. Yes, I know that it is way colder in many other European countries at the moment... but at least, there, the houses are adequately heated. Here, in our damp, occasionally open-plan houses, a gas heater is seriously inadequate; an electric heater generates a lovely long electricity bill; not all of us are lucky to have a fireplace; and potez heating - while great - is prohibitively expensive for most of us. I seem to spend most of the evenings I spend at home complaining that it is colder inside than out, huddled in front of the gas heater in my dressing gown with the cats on my lap for added body heat!

Then, there is the rain. When it rains, the whole island stops, with cars stalling and roads falling (to bits) and you have to leave home at least half an hour earlier to ensure arriving at your destination on time because of all the cars which litter the road - either because they skid and crash into each other, into crumbling walls etc, or because they cease to work after ploughing into water-covered potholes the size of Manhattan. You know the ones I mean. yes, as soon as there is a few inches of rain, numerous streets and houses get flooded and reminiscent of Venice on a bad day.

But it's not only the rain and the cold which gets me down... grey/dark skies get me down the most! My hubby is convinced that I have SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) because I get progressively more withdrawn and unhappy as the days get shorter and darker... and more and more happy as they get longer and sunnier. He might be right! I don't think I'd survive for very long living in the UK, for example (although I love the country), coz I can't imagine weeks, or even months, of continuous grey skies.

Apart from rejoicing at the weather, there's not much to report on my side... oh, I did watch a fantastic performance of the MADC's 'Someone Who'll Watch over Me' at St James last week and if you haven't watched it, do get tickets for one of the extra performances next weeked. It's rather heavy but has it's humorous moments and it is very well acted and directed.

Also, I got a surprise sms from Sha on Thursday saying 'Guess who came to Malta on a whim?!', which resulted in a lovely long chat with her over a yummy hot chocolate on Friday, as well as a hilarious incident involving a pair of shoes which Sha has promised to blog about herself!

Anyway, I've just realised it's nearly 1 pm and I'm STARVING (as usual)! Off I go...

Bye bye Buffy!

As Toni rightly commented, finally managing to watch the 7th and last series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer merited at least a short entry in the blog!

You see, when 'Buffy' first hit the airwaves, myself and a group of friends had started watching it, slowly becoming, if not obsessed, very very interested (some of the group more than others hehehe!) Since the series was not available here, we'd patiently wait for the videos (no dvd's then!) and watch them together at someone's house.

From the start, I really felt myself drawn to the series - For those who don't know, Buffy is erm... a vampire/demon slayer. But she is also an ex-cheerleader and all-round popular girl who, really has this destiny thrust upon her. Sounds cheesy eh? In fact, the first materialisation of Buffy was as the 1992 film of the same name starring Kristy Swanson and Donald Sutherland which was cheesy! But it gave the creator Joss Whedon (a GENIUS) the idea for the TV series and a cult TV show was born.

The TV series (I'm not going to be too lenghty or the post will never end - click on this link if you want an overview - but there are spoliers)was drastically different from the film. Joss Whedon (did I mention that he is a GENIUS?)'s ideas and direction is legendary - he made Buffy and her friends come to life; he made you really care about the characters. And the writing was simply amazing. The fantastic actors he found, including Sarah Michelle Geller as Buffy, Nicholas Brendon as Xander, Alyson Hannigan as Willow and Anthony Stewart Head as Giles (whom I watched in 'Pirates of Penzance' in London 2 years ago. I sat in the front row - heaven!) were perfectly cast and worked so well together it was difficult to believe that they weren't best friends in real life as well.

Anyway, years later, I somewhat lost touch with the Buffy group and they started watching the series online. however, I'd still meet them occacionally and watch the vidoes, and sometimes dvd's (which had been invented by then hehehe!)

Some episodes were simply unforgettable - My favourite ever of course being 'Hush', known as 'a special Buffy' where demons take away the voices of the inhabitants of Sunnydale (where Buffy et al live). So something like 90 % of the episode is without anyone talking - it is simply amazing, VERY scary... and absolutely hilarious! In 'The Body' a major character dies and I must admit, it really made me cry. It was very real and very well-handled - the filming, writing and acting were all top-notch I was really upset! And of course, how can I not mention the musical episode 'Once More With Feeling' in which a demon makes all the character burst into appropriate song?! The songs are all amazing and very catchy. Of course, the songs were written by the GENIUS Joss.

And so, we come to approximately 3 years ago when the first half of the 22 episodes came out on video. i went to the flat of one of the Buffy group members and watched the first 11 episodes. And then, well, it was just one of those things - I never watched the second half. It just never happened. I always said I'd borrow them off someone. But it just never happened. I tried video stores but they never happened to have series 7. And then, an off-chance remark to my brother (see my previous post) meant that finally, after over 3 years of studiously avoiding any mention of 'Buffy' on the internet; of closing my ears and singing 'la la la la' when the Pea mentioned anything to do with the last series; of making sure I changed the channel on the TV whenever one of the 'Buffy' actors appeared - finally I got to see how it ends!

And what a marathon session it was! As I was really sick on the Thursday and Friday, I only managed to watch a couple of episodes before I re-took to my bed. Most of the 22 episodes (I re-watched the first half too) were watched on the Saturday. I laughed a lot at the brilliance of some of the lines... and I must admit that more than a few tears were indeed shed when it was all over.

Next up... well, I intend to read aaaaaaaaalll the Buffy scripts from Series 1 to 7 - sad, maybe - but I can't wait!!!

It's been MAD!

... my life I mean. What with being really sick and in bed for two days last week, then work on Saturday and parents' day at school yesterday and Monday, plus one particularly upsetting/unpleasant thing which happened on Monday... well, let's just say I haven't really been able to get down to updating the blog.

Not that I did I have much to say till Monday anyway:

Got up after having spent the whole night coughing, went to kitchen, fed cats, had more medicine, went back to bed!

It was really sweet that a couple of people actually sent me an sms to say 'You haven't blogged in a while - hope you are ok hehehe!

Although, I didn't manage to drag myself upstairs to my cold study to blog, I did manage to do one thing though - I finally watched the final series of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'. If you remember it was on my list of 'things to do' over Christmas but I hadn't managed to locate them until my brother overheard me saying that I desperately wanted to watch them (after 3 years!) and arranged from me to borrow them from a colleague of his - bliss!!!

I can't believe that I finally have managed to fulfill my 'quest' of watching all 7 seasons of Buffy... whatever shall I aspire to next hehehe?!

Happiness is...

Do you remember those rather trite messages which started off: 'happiness is... ' and ended in something banal like '... walking barefoot inthe park' or something? Well, according to the annual 'World Database of Happiness', happiness is... living in Malta:

According to an annual World Database of Happiness compiled by Rotterdam Erasmus University Prof Ruut Veenhoven, Malta is the happiest place on earth. African News Dimension (AND) reported that the study shows that 74 per cent of Maltese people said they are happy, followed by Denmark, Switzerland and Columbia with 73 per cent.

You can read the full article on maltamedia.com.

EH?!? 74 per cent of Maltese people said they are happy?!? But I thought we were a nation of moaners? We moan about everything from the moment we wake up until the moment we fall asleep. All over Malta, in grocery stores, parties, offices, homes, all one hears is people complaining about something! At the very least, we moan about taxes, we moan about the prices of things, we moan about the state of the roads (we even moan when the roads finally are fixed, complaining that it's for the Queen's benefit and not ours).

For goodness sake, we even moan about the weather - which is ridiculous, considering that we have approximately, what, 5 months of sunshine on average?!

Maybe we're a nation of schizophrenics - outwardly moany and inwardly content? Maybe many of the 74 per cent lied when they filled out the survey? Or maybe they misunderstood the questionand read UN-happiness instead?! Heh!

Did the earth move for you too?

So there I was a couple of hours ago, at home alone, dozing in bed - yes, yet again I am sick, this time really horribly sick , with the snot and the cough and the fever oh joy - with the cats on my lap when suddenly, the mirror in my bedroom began to shake uncontrollably, making this awful noise against the wall (it's a wrought iron one - the mirror, not the wall hehe).

I thought at first that some monster truck had passed in front of my house or something. But then, the mirror started literally banging and bouncing against the wall. The cats leapt up and looked at me with fear in their eyes (OK, that's what it seemed like, anyway!).

And then the ground shook, together with my bed, with me in it. Now I knew it wasn't a truck!

I leapt out of bed and looked out of the window, but everything seemed to be OK outside. Please note that the ground was still shaking. Just as I was debating whether to go an shelter under the door lintel, as you're supposed to do, the tremors stopped.

Two minutes later, Sky News reported that there was a large eathquake in Athens. Wow, it must have been pretty large to be felt over here! I must admit that while it was going on I did have a stab of fear - not to the extent of my life flashing by my eyes or anything like that... but I did wonder if I should run out into street in my pj's (and possibly catch pneumonia)! Thank goodness, no-one seems to have been badly hurt in Greece.

Les Gals

Had a great day today. OK, I started work again and still had a great day today! After work, went for a loooooooong lunch with Queen Pea, Witchie and Jo-Jo where we exchanged Xmas pressies (better late than never hehehe) and I must say I got some pretty nifty stuff! They know me well... give me some pretty jewellery and a funny book and I'm one cheap and happy date!

Lunch finished at about 5 pm! I really thought the restaurant staff were going to throw us out but they were so nice. They came up to us and just as we were apologising for being the only ones left in the place, the manager (I think he was the manager, he seemed to be in charge) told us that we were free to stay as long as we like. It was so nice, and a real change, considering that the level of service, politeness and plain basic civility is usually so crap here.

After that Pea went off to panto, Jo-Jo had an appointment and Witchie needed to do some food shopping - you know, the basic stuff to take back home - gbejniet, salami, stuffed olives etc etc. Now, I hate and detest food shopping so she know has proof positive that I love her to bits, because I actually traipsed round a supermarket with her for nearly an hour and only grumbled about 5 times - a record for me! OK, maybe it was 6.

Later, she and Jo were at my house, the three of us having a good old natter and an even better laugh. I really was reminded that I really do miss having them here. Friends are fun and good to have, kids! When they're around all the time, I suppose you kinda take them for granted but when they're around in small doses only, you tend to appreciate them more I suppose! And on the rare occasions that the four of us are together, it is a real buzz.

Yes, it was a good day.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Here's hoping your 2006 is a great year!!!

I woke up on the 31st December 2005 and found 4 white hairs on my head. Tragedy. I'm just hoping that they miraculously disappear or that it was just a bad dream. Maybe, just like old Father Time, they disappeared at the stroke of midnight on Saturday to be replaced by lovely brown locks. I haven't checked yet.

*Groan*

On the plus side, had a really fun party to see the year out (complete with sparklers which, for once, did not nearly set fire to my hair) at a friend's house. Brilliant company - including the lovely Pea - food, drink... and I even danced a little! A fantastic start to what I hope will be a fantastic year!

Now, off I go to buy some hair colour...