Many sitting at the tables ringing the stage have a few wrinkles and a couple of grey hairs. The rest of the room is filled with young men and women, ten year old kids with their parents, teenagers, many singing along, all drawn together and lifted up by Georgia’s lovely voice and her radiance.

I’ve rarely met a more convivial crowd, or one more generous in spirit. This is a local’s bar, our first time here. We’re strangers to this island and have only a nodding acquaintance with a few people, but everyone comes and shakes hands or gives us a hug, talks with us, pulls us in. We become part of the community.

During a break I go to the bar and order a glass of wine. Mark, the barkeep and owner, smiles and shakes my hand. Mark’s from Detroit, served in the navy, been here in Gozo some years now. He smiles at the fellow next to me ordering in fractured English with a strong French accent. Mark smiles a lot.

Back at my table I talk with the lady next to me, a thin woman with brown hair shot through with gray and drawn back and tied, a light skirt and loose blouse. She’s from England, lived here two years.

“Many of us here are making a new life. Some of us have lost our husbands, or wives. Our children don’t need us and there’s not much for us at home, nothing but sitting alone in a room. I hear this music and feel like I’m sixteen again. I still feel the same inside. I don’t feel old at all. Except for my body.” She raises her open hand from her lap, palm up, gesturing at a trim but no longer young body. “Somehow I woke up one day in this body.” She smiles, first ruefully then brightly with a touch of insouciance, “Well, it’s what we have so we’ll make the best of it.”

My heart opens and for that moment I love this brave and lonely woman.

Then the break is over. The stage light hits him and Elvis blows the windows out with ‘I Gotta Woman.’ He’s shaking. He’s on fire. The heat is rising and Elvis has everyone rocking. Couples jump up and dance, dancing the dances of their youth, limber and agile as teenagers. Some of the dancers are teenagers. Mark’s mom is up and rockin. Eileen’s seventy-four, just had a birthday, worked with Motown from its inception, knew all the greats and does the Motown Shuffle to the Elvis beat.

Elvis segues to ‘Don’t Be Cruel’ and moves in close. Real close. He’s singing to the melancholy lady next to me, singing right to her, right in her face. He goes to one knee touches her shoulder and her smile goes nuclear and her face bright red – her heart beats so it scares her to death.

Steve ‘Elvis’ Allen is not an Elvis imitator. Steve is an English vocalist and accomplished musician who has performed from Albert Hall to the Vegas Strip, and who interprets Elvis’s music and renders it with his own muscular grace and driving style. Let yourself go for a moment and you know, just know – the King never died.

Then Georgia’s back and the whole room is swaying to her sweet rendition of ‘Shine A Light,’ a Stones song from the long ago 60s. The currents of time’s great river slow this evening, and in a small eddy far from the turbulence of the center stream everyone’s again sixteen, the world and life before them. Everyone’s shining a light and holding back the darkness. I’m adrift in gentle waves of joy

How it is that all these people from far away places, and my love and I, have come to this tiny island in an ancient sea? A thousand years ago and more, Ulysses washed up on this shore, shipwrecked, wounded and worn from his battles and travel. He was healed and restored by Calypso’s magic. Maybe a trace of Calypso’s magic lingers, magic that draws in and heals weary travelers.

Around midnight we walk past the harbor lights, up the hill to our temporary home, walking hand in hand under a starry starry sky, enveloped in the scent of the sea, caressed by its soft touch, floating on an easy wave of island magic.

One of the unique things about The Palace Amory is that virtually all the arms and armor in the collection can be traced back to their original owners, all Knights of Malta, and all of whom fought in the Siege of Malta (1565) a key battle in halting the Ottoman conquest of Europe. The rapiers, broadswords, sabers, the pistols, muskets and cannon, even the pole arms – every weapon in the museum was used in the defense of Malta, and Europe. Virtually all can be traced back to it’s owner and place of manufacture. But not this knife.

I have an appointment to meet with the current curator, and the previous curator who has retired after 30 years, and who the curator asked to meet with me. Perhaps he will know more. The curator also invited me to tour the workrooms where they maintain these medieval arms and offered to take from the cases anything we would like to handle and photograph. I’ll be seeing them in a couple of weeks. Should be interesting.

Can any of the knife guys out there indentify this blade’s place of origin?

Only one row of buildings forms a barrier between our windows and the Sirocco, between the southernmost tip of Europe and Africa’s primeval presence.

With nightfall the wind shifts round to the southwest, now cooler, bringing a hint of far Atlantic salt. The windows are open in the apartment across the way. Sheer white curtains billow. I see a room in glimpses as the curtains first reveal then obscure. A deeply tanned woman in a white shift moves slowly towards her lover and as she lowers herself to the bed I look away.

I look to the stars, so brilliant, so beautiful, indifferent to the wind, to the lovers, to me. The cooling Sirocco caresses my bare limbs and chest. The heat of the day fades and another heat arises. I leave my balcony and go inside.

What drove ML to the gin was the empty buildings, empty they seem during the day. It’s at night when the movement begins, constant shadowy shifting in the vacant buildings across the street. And the noise, low growling and snarling. At first we thought our imaginations were overactive. But the doubts knawed at ML, made her apprehensive and anxious. Gin eased the anxiety. Then last night they came swarming out. Zombies. Vacant eyed, slavering zombies, dozens of them… Oops, that’s also another story. No zombies here as far as I can tell.

Lets see if I can get it right. It is hot. Last week the temperature hovered around 100 degrees most days Evening sea breezes are cool and the nights balmy, perfect time for a black current icy, with a touch of gin.

From The Guardian:

French to say au revoir to canalside trees

Thousands of plane trees along the banks of the Canal du Midi, a Unesco heritage site, will have to be cut down because of a deadly fungus.

More here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl​d/2011/jul/27/french-axe-thous​ands-plane-trees

Available here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/53617

We’re now on the island of Gozo, which many historians agree was in the ancient world the isle of Calypso, where Ulysses was shipwrecked while wandering in search of his home after the Trojan War. Calypso, a sea nymph, fell in love with Ulysses and kept him captive because she could not bear to be parted from him. The island was rich in fruits and honey, a magical isle blessed by the gods and where time did not run as in the rest of the world. Calypso served Ulysses the finest wine and food and offered him her love, and even immortality if he would only stay with her forever.

Although tempted, Ulysses resisted Calypso and all she offered. He held fast to his vow to return to his wife, Penelope. Finally, after seven years and on the command of Jupiter, Calypso provided him with a well provisioned raft and a fair wind to take him home. Ulysses sailed away from Calypso never to return.

When I was a child I read a child’s version of the Odyssey. I read about all of Ulysses adventures: the Cyclops, the Sirens and Calypso’s great beauty and charm, and about the golden sands of Calypso’s magic isle. Did the story of Ulysses’ Odyssey happen as Homer tells it? Or is it just a story?

A schoolboy once asked Winston Churchill if King Arthur had been real. He replied, “Of course he was real, and if not he should have been, and more of the same.”

I visited Calypso’s cave and walked her beach, the sand was colored red-gold unlike any I’ve ever seen. I scooped up a handful and it now rests in a wine glass on my nightstand, sand where Ulysses and Calypso once walked.

The trail starts at the foot of our street and climbs the ridge winding back and forth, angelica, rosemary and waist high palms bordering the way, the ridge terraced by low field stone walls, some very old. Then the trail straightens and leads to the lookout tower.

The tower has been partially rebuilt, new stone where the seaward wall was shot away by cannon, the foundation of stone blocks dressed and laid centuries ago when a watch was maintained to warn against the Barbary Pirates who terrorized the Mediterranean for hundreds of years, enslaving over a million people. In 1551 they killed or captured the entire population of Gozo, five thousand people, and sold the survivors into slavery, leaving the island unpopulated for twenty years until people returned under the protection of the Knights of Malta.

The day begins to warm as we return, the sea and sky now shading towards blue. No sound of car or truck can be heard. The only sounds: waves below, the crunch of our footsteps on the dirt path, far away a dog barks. In the harbor a catamaran lifts sail and drifts away for ports unknown.

We live now in an apartment open on each side. To the front a balcony and the sea. In back a large terrace and a hill covered with wild growth. With both doors open the ocean winds blow through the apartment, first through the living room, then along the hallway with doors on each side, stone block walls, the marble floor cool underfoot.

Breakfast is on the balcony: prosciutto de parma, boiled eggs, fresh figs. I work three or four hours in the cool and quiet morning. Then around eleven as the sun heats the day we walk down the hill to a café on the water and watch the swimmers and divers. A late fishing boat comes in with a small swordfish. The owner of the café bargains with the fisherman and walks away with the entire fish on a large platter, the sword protruding two feet to his side as if he had been skewered. Thirty minutes later the platter is placed on ice in a glass case, the swordfish now rows of steaks, the head attesting to their source.

The afternoon is white hot, the sea now deep blue. A lanky girl from a northern country suns herself on the rocks, her pale tummy and ta-tas turning bright red. One respects the Mediterranean sun or pays the price. A good time to stay in place in the café under wide umbrellas, sitting in shade, talking with friends who stop by the table to say hello. But there are things to do and so we drive to Victoria, the large town four miles away. We pass five or six cars on the road and then we’re into the winding streets.

The market has fresh figs today and deep green melons and bright yellow ones shaped like oversized acorns, round green squash the size of tennis balls, ribbed and smooth tomatoes small and large, a bin of multicolored broad beans, black shriveled olives and plump green olives, spiced olives and olive oil, grapes – all local produce. We walk the streets on various errands, the sun stinging a little, but still the breeze and even in town the air is clean.

We’re home by four and I settle in for a few more hours of work, all windows and doors open, the breeze dying down and now replaced by floor fans. From time to time I roll a sprig of wild lavender under my nose and remember the hill where I plucked it. At seven it’s time for a walk down by the inlet, waves splashing on rock, semi-wild neighborhood cats gathering in packs for their evening meal provided by local folks.

At home we move to the rear terrace for a glass of wine. Dinner is at eight, maybe nine, the light fading, the sea dark now. The streetlights flicker on, the honey colored buildings on our street turning golden with deep shadows. A brilliant crescent moon hangs in the air over the beach. It’s festa season and the fireworks from the village over the hill behind us sound like you might think an artillery barrage would sound, if you’re never heard an artillery barrage.

The population of Gozo is about 30,000. The island is crossed by a network of narrow roads passing farm plots and market gardens, an island of small villages and hidden shrines and arches, deep ravines, crumbling walls and pillars and one of the oldest monolithic temples yet discovered. Man has lived here for over seven thousand years, and for four thousand years has lived much as now – by the grape and the olive. We live…not out of doors, but with doors and windows open to the world, part of it, not walled in, feeling warmth of the rising sun, heat of afternoon, cool of evening, smelling the sea, the wild growth on the hills, rosemary, lavender…

Mgarr Harbor Malta

We walk to the car from the airport, following the driver, a small brown wrinkled man in sandals who had been holding the sign with my name, the indigo sea visible from the palm bordered parking lot. The driver turns on the air-conditioning. I roll down the window to smell the land and sea: scent of wild roses, dry odor of rocks heated by sun, dust, tarmac, rosemary, salt.

New construction on the airport access road, the main road winds through open country with rocky rolling hills, angelica growing wild, brambles, goldenrod, clumps of cactus and low hand laid stone walls everywhere demarcating small garden plots and fields growing leafy greens, carrots, corn, and a dozen unidentified vegetables, the Mediterranean
sea ever present a few hundred years to the right of the road. A village appears off to the left rising from a fold in the earth, stone blocks jumbled together – honey colored, tan, sand, beige, fifty shades of stone. We pass a crossroads sign with a half dozen unintelligible names, drive through a town the buildings all stone blocks with Italianesque facades, ornate stonework balconies at every window, architecture a blend of Italianate and Moorish, the overall impression North Africa with signs in English and no North Africans to be seen.

Bougainvillea cascades over walls and climbs rocks in more colors than I knew the plant possessed: the familiar crimson and deep purple, orange peel, lavender, blue, pale rose. Traffic keeps to the left, there’s little of it: Suzuki vans – miniature vans looking like Toon Town vehicles – battered Land Rovers, tiny Fiat sedans. A Honda 125 motorcycle buzzes past. The narrow road wanders over low hills into shallow defiles then winds up to a crest, the sea now on both sides of the road. Another mile and a village dominated by an enormous cathedral.

Then the harbor, the shallow water near the shore a shocking transparent turquoise eddying around smooth boulders, out in the channel shading to the exact shade of cobalt as an ancient Roman glass bead given to ML by a friend in Germany. Whitecaps rise in the fresh breeze. We board the ferry walk to the bow and see an island in the distance – Gozo.

London is still the vibrant city I’ve known for over forty years, a city made up of many villages that grew together over the centuries, with each village retaining its character along with local shops and pubs – a neighborhood social institution to which we have no parallel. We took the train to center London on Tuesday, visited the British Museum (free to all, as are ALL museums and many art exhibits) and wandered the streets still in jet lagged fog.

The flight was porca misere – Italian saying, means pig misery. We diverted to Winnipeg to take off a passenger who was ill. All seats were booked and ML and I had to sit separately, thirty hours in transit. We were fried when we arrived. But no complaints, most flights are like that today unless you’re flying first, which we no longer do.

Paul took us all, and his lovely daughter Rebecca, to lunch yesterday at a beautiful pub on the bank of the Thames, this was after touring a duke’s former country estate. We spent the afternoon talking and watching the boats passing and walkers and bicyclists along the river path. It was after six on a balmy sunlight evening when we decided to head home. The ladies drove and Paul and I walked, stopping in a small pub along the way for some refreshment after our arduous hike of a mile or so. There was a patio in the rear with a gathering of local folks, children with their parents and people of all ages, chatting with one another, the evening sunlight glowing with that thin northern quality of light until the sky turned indigo around ten o’clock.

The air is clear and clean, the daytime sky pale blue with wonderful fluffy clouds to the horizon. Parks are everywhere and there are so many trees that from the air London looks like a forest. Trains and the underground run on time and are clean. The buses seem to be running natural gas – at least I do not notice the smell of exhaust fumes. Traditional London taxies are everywhere and traffic is not jammed as it once was. There are few cars in the center of the city. Private cars are discouraged from coming into the city center by high fees.

Public transport goes everywhere and you never have to wait more then a few minutes for a train or bus. People are friendly and say hello on the street, most everyone smiling. It is now possible to get good food anywhere, unlike England of old, and there are a number of chains such as ‘Prêt a Manger’ that serve organic sandwiches, salads and the like at reasonable (for England) prices. The exchange rate renders our dollars pathetic. We leave for Malta out of Luten airport tomorrow at zero dark thirty, which means we’ll have to spend the night in an airport hotel to make the early flight, Ryan air is very cheap but not convenient.

Pauline sent us a chip for our EU phone and has arranged for a car to meet us at the Malta airport and bring us to the Gozo ferry, nice lady, easing the way for us. The flight to Malta is only three hours so we should be cleaving Mediterranean waves and crossing the wine dark sea by noon and then having lunch with Pauline in our new temporary, as all things are, home.

Ramses II surveying his subjects