Beaver Water World

Tuesday May 7th 2013

On what looked to be a lovely, warm and sunny day, we went off to take a look at a place I never knew existed, quite close to where we live. It is called Beaver Water World, largely because it has some beavers, but I have to say we didn't see them - they didn't seem to be about during our visit.

It is an interesting little place, which has a small selection of animals, most of which have been rescued because they were unwanted pets. People seem to keep the most extraordinary things as pets, then get bored with them and want rid of them.

There's quite a selection of birds, most of which were behind mesh in cages and hard to photograph. The cages have to be so sturdy because a number of animals have been stolen. There was quite a selection of the sort of tropical bird normally kept as a pet - Budgerigars, Parrots, Lovebirds, Cockatiels. But there were also some more exotic things, like this gorgeous pheasant.



He was quite hard to photograph, as he ran so quickly up and down in front of me, demonstrating his colourful plumage.

There were some more unusual birds; the magnificent chap below is a Snowy Owl.


I think he was quite interested in the visitors, though he was right at the back of his enclosure and not easy to photograph.

There was another owl too - this rather imposing Horned Owl.



He too seemed interested in looking at the visitors, but he was also right at the back of his cage. And as you can see, the two ear-tufts are stuck underneath something, so I didn't manage a very good photograph.

Not all of the birds are in cages, there are some chickens which are allowed to wander about. Some of them were quite fascinating, notably a pair of what looked like very hairy chickens, which are called Silky chickens. I would have included a photo, but they were rather camera shy. One sat inside a bush, and the other was very busy preening its feathers; whenever it saw me with the camera, it turned its head away from me, so it just looked like a huge ball of rippling reddish-brown hair.

The other animals I had very little luck with photographing were the Long-tailed Lemurs. They have such lovely, friendly little pointed faces, and were scampering about or eating their lunch, so they would have made very good subjects. Unfortunately, one of them was stolen last year and they are kept behind glass. With the sun at the wrong angle, my photos are full of reflections of the trees around, and not worth looking at.

I had better luck with the Meercats.




I don't know if these were also rescue animals, but they seemed pretty comfortable here, though they are quite small and so perhaps quite young. There are only three of them. They took turns in standing sentinel though - and quickly saw off a big magpie which came in and wanted to share their lunch, which they guarded jealously.

After that, we reached the Beaver enclosure, but the beavers were not out and about, I'm afraid. However, in a field close by were a couple of Muntjac Deer.



I think there were more than two, but the others were inside their little shelters, so we couldn't see them.

After the outdoor animals, we went outside to look at the reptiles, of which there are rather a lot, kept in extremely tropical conditions. These were all unwanted pets, and it really amazed me that somebody would think a crocodile or a boa-constrictor would make a suitable pet. I could - just - understand somebody thinking they would like terrapins or toads and then wanting to get rid of them when they proved uninteresting or got too big. But who on earth wants to keep a crocodile - especially in this country? And there were 2 of them, from two different homes that didn't want them any longer.

As well as the boa-constrictor, there were two pythons, one very big and one absolutely enormous, with a body as thick as my thigh. It is hard to believe that people would want to keep such a thing in their home.

There were quite a few iguanas, of which this was the biggest.


And he certainly was big; his body was two or three feet long, in fact I think he was bigger than the smaller crocodile!

There were quite a few Tropical fish to admire as well, the place sells exotic fish and fish tanks as well as small animals like rabbits, mice and gerbils. They also sell pond plants and fish for the garden pond. We though about getting some for our pond, but we'd need to get the pond pump working. And I think any fish might fall prey to passing herons - or even the huge black birds which we regularly see in our garden, rooks or possibly ravens, I'm not sure which.

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Old Bailey Again

Friday May 3rd 2013

Friday May 3rd was the day appointed for the next hearing at the Old Bailey in the proceedings related to the killing of my cousin. The previous week, we had been there for a very short hearing to discuss jurisdiction over the accused. The conclusion was, as we had expected, that the suspect would be tried here first, and afterwards go to Germany to be tried for the killing there.

This Friday morning, my sister and I had an early appointment to meet the Crown Prosecution Service before the hearing, so we were told in advance what was likely to happen today.

We have had to change judge. This is because our original judge has had a promotion and is about to become a judge in the Court of Appeal. (I knew about the promotion already, as I found it when looking up details about him on the web earlier in the week). He will no longer sit at the Old Bailey, but only in the Courts of Appeal. So this time we had the Recorder of London, who is the most senior permanent judge of the central criminal court.

What happened in court was fairly short. The accused was on video link from the secure hospital, and I have to say he did not look at all well. He had had a rather radical haircut, what my sons call 'No 1 all over'. In January, he had short wavy hair and just looked like a fairly ordinary well-educated young man. Now he looks mad, and also very big and threatening; he seems to have put on a lot of weight and his face looks puffy, probably from the treatment drugs. He now looks the kind of person you'd cross the street to avoid! I found it quite disturbing that the video screen was directly facing me, in a court room which wasn't very big, and he seemed to be staring straight at me. Of course, he was staring straight at the camera, and anyway, what he can see is the judge, not me. But I found it very unsettling.

He was formally arraigned - he was asked to plead. He pleaded not guilty to murder, guilty to manslaughter. This plea was accepted, because I understand that he is now diagnosed, by both prosecution and defence psychiatrists, as a paranoid schizophrenic. There was a mention of the killing in Germany, and we learned that a European arrest warrant had been issued but not yet executed. I imagine that's because everything is waiting until this case is over.

The CPS barrister then requested a postponement until May 28th, when, if all is in order, he will 'open the facts of the case' in court. This means he will explain in court exactly what the accused did, and will detail Douglas' injuries. He told us privately we could leave quietly if we found it too upsetting, but he has to do this because it needs to be a matter of public record. They should then be able to move to sentencing, which will be a hospital order and a restraining order. The restraining order prevents his release, if the doctors deem him to be no longer deranged, until his case can be considered again.

Nobody was ready anyway - some of the papers were missing! I think the courts need to employ some better quality filing clerks. The judge complained that he hadn't received one of the three psychiatrists' reports. The defence was missing some of the relevant statements. Worst of all, the Clerk of the Court asked the accused to confirm his name and he couldn't, because it wasn't his name! For some reason, she had his first name down wrongly.

Anyway, it was over this time in under half an hour. We just hope it can all be over and done with next time, at the end of the month. He'll remain locked up in a secure hospital once he has been sentenced. When the Germans are ready with their case, he will go to Germany to be tried there, as long, the judge says, as the German authorities can assure him that there will be no danger to the public in the move. Everybody considers him dangerous, so he will not appear in court at all, he will always be just on the video link. It is possible that he'll be incarcerated in Germany, in fact I hope he will.

There were some journalists in court, so we were not entirely surprised the next day to read some newspaper reports. Not one was accurate! It was quite interesting to compare reports from newspapers here with those in German newspapers. I was surprised to learn that German newspapers never identify suspects or victims by name, so accounts of the killing in Germany are very much less sensational than you would find in a newspaper here.

I am now being very careful what I say In this blog. The suspect has told the British police what he did in Germany, in fact one of the German papers says (this is a translation) 'In his interview with British authorities, the suspect didn’t just speak about the attack in London, but also admitted attacking a woman two weeks earlier in his hometown. During the course of a further interview he was able to describe the sequence of events of the killing in such detail that the investigation authorities have no doubt that he committed the act.'

However, I understand he has refused to speak to the German police - they came over here specially to interview him - and I am told he has refused to give them his fingerprints or DNA. So, in case he pleads not guilty in Germany and there is a trial over there, I am not saying too much in public.

My sister and I are not finding this easy. She finds she has lots of issues with anger management. I worry about walking down the street now, especially in London; I try to be aware of who is around me all the time. And I'm not longer relaxed about the crazy person in the street or on public transport, in fact I take evasive action. I feel Douglas might not have been so vulnerable to attack if he'd been able to see. I find it very hard to believe I'll never see him again. And of course, we both find it difficult not being able to make any plans when we don't know for definite when we need to go to court.

The other thing we both dread is Douglas' killer being classed as 'no longer dangerous as long as he takes his medication' and being let out in two or three years. We don't want him coming back to London again! Apparently, German regulations governing mental health patients who have committed violent crimes are different, so we are hoping he won't be let out to do it again.







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More days out

End of April and the beginning of May

With the start of some better weather, we've been able to go exploring a bit around the Oxted area. We had hoped to visit Titsey Place, which is a historic manor house situated at a short distance to the east of Oxted, but we discovered it doesn't open until mid-May. So we had to content ourselves with a walk around the estate.

There are two walks to choose from - the long one and the short one - but they both start by climbing a very steep slope to the top of the North Downs. The view from the highest spot on the trail was absolutely superb, down across Surrey and rolling green fields towards the South Downs and the sea.



Fortunately, it was a clear day, and many of the trees and hedges on the trail are still bare of leaves so we were able to appreciate the wonderful view. Titsey House is the big beige irregular block on the left of this photo. We'll go back again soon to do the long walk, we only managed the short one this time. And we'll go back when the house is open, as it dates back to the mid 1500s and sounds very interesting.

A few days later, we decided to take a look at Staffhurst Wood, which is only a few miles away, and which I thought might be a likely spot for bluebells. Staffhurst is thought to have been wooded continually for at least a thousand years, though this changed in the 1930s when much of the wood was felled for timber. More recently it has been managed to try and bring back something of its former character and It is now designated a Local Nature Reserve and a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

The trail is circular and is supposed to take about an hour and a half. It took us slightly longer, partly because we kept stopping to take photos. The bluebells were everywhere, under the trees and in all the open clearings.



and I could see they were mostly English bluebells, not Spanish ones.

Some of the bigger clearings were described as being like the original ‘assarts’ or forest clearings cut in this area, probably during the thirteenth century. In some there were ponds, though all seem to have been dug quite recently.



This rather pretty one was the smallest.

Another reason we were slower than expected on this walk was that some of it is over bridle-ways which had been badly cut up by horses' hooves during all the recent rain. Although it was mostly dry underfoot, the surface was so badly cut up it was hard to keep your footing. However, other parts of it were on a good hard surface, which made things easier. Some of it used a narrow tarmac road which was built during the Second World War when the wood was used to store ammunition. Other relics of the war include various defensive ditches and a hard track made of bricks and rubble from the London Blitz, which were recycled to provide foundations for a light railway system to serve the ammunition dump.

It is sad that such ancient forest was destroyed in the 1930s but at least I suppose it is on the way to being restored now.

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March and April

March and April 2013

Dear me, I see it is two months since I wrote anything!

I see from my calendar that March was quite a dull month, only enlivened by Paul returning from Colorado on 7th, and by my having various meetings and a few days of work. One of the work days was cancelled because of the snow! March was bitterly cold, and the snow was quite deep on a couple of days. I could probably have reached the place I had to visit - I seem to remember it was Watford - but heaven knows how long it might have taken. And I wasn't at all certain I would be able to get home again. The colleague with whom I was supposed to be travelling lives in Hastings on the south coast, and she was snowed in and had no trains at all! Fortunately, the snow didn't lie for long, only a few days - though it killed off all the lovely spring flowers which had been poking their noses out of the ground.

Paul went up to Manchester on the 22nd of March to help with DIY, and I followed on the 26th, and we stayed for Easter. Unfortunately, our grandson had tonsillitis which we both caught, so then we took it in turns to be quite ill. The doctor in Manchester said our grandson only had a virus, so of course we were too intimidated to dare to consult our own doctor when we became ill for fear of being sent away with a flea in our ears for having the temerity to turn up at the surgery with a virus.

We returned from Manchester on April 2nd, neither of us feeling at all well, and had to unpack, wash, iron and pack up again to spend two weeks in our London apartment, which was between tenants. Paul wanted to do some minor repairs there, and I wanted to visit various galleries and exhibitions. Neither of us achieved what we wanted. Paul wasn't well, and anyway went back up to Manchester to give more DIY help. I was so ill I ended up at an emergency GP centre, had to be given antibiotics, and spent the 10 days from the 5th to the 15th ill and in bed.

Our daughter-in-law and grandson had been to France and came back on Eurostar, stopping off in London for a weekend visit on Friday 5th. My son came too, so they could have a weekend in London, but I was too ill to appreciate it and Paul wasn't much better. My sister had to come and help out!

I was finally more or less better by 15th, and Paul had returned from Manchester in time for us to pack up and move back to Oxted, as new tenants were arriving at the weekend. Paul had lots of DIY back in London before the new tenants moved in and I had to concentrate on unpacking, washing and ironing as we were due back in Manchester for our grandson's birthday on April 21st.

It doesn't seem long since he was a tiny baby, but now he running everywhere and chatting away nineteen to the dozen. Thomas the Tank Engine is quite a favourite at present, and even has to be taken to bed, which cant be particularly comfortable. His speech isn't always entirely clear though, which makes for some interesting misunderstandings - he told Paul he had been playing with Thomas, but Paul heard Tennis rather than Thomas, which resulted in a conversation that became progressively more incomprehensible to them both until I put them both out of their misery by explaining what he'd really said.

We finally returned to our own home for a few days on April 22nd, though I still had a couple of days of work. Thank goodness the weather at last started to improve, and we are starting to see more signs of spring.



This is the big white Magnolia near our south-facing windows just an instant before it started to shed its petals. There's a pink magnolia just a little further down the garden, but it's difficult to catch it at quite the right moment, as some petals have already fallen before all of them have opened.



The Rhododendrons will be flowering soon, and we'll have been here a year - though it only feels like about 5 minutes because we never seem to stay in one place for long.

One lovely sunny day we paid a quick visit to Chartwell, which used to be Winston Churchill's home. It's only a short distance away, so we had a nice walk in the gardens just before they shut. They are absolutely lovely. This is the view over the lakes he created - he was quite a landscape gardener.



Close to the lakes, there's a statue of him and his wife Clementine



I felt I would quite like to sit on a bench there myself, it was so beautiful.

When Churchill got older, he preferred to stay closer to the house - the lakes are at the foot of the hill. Many photos were taken of him beside one of the fish ponds close to the house.



If your screen isn't too small, you should be able to see the chair where he usually sat. It's always left in that position, where he liked it. The tree in the background, smothered in white blossom, is far better than anything we have in our garden.

What we do have in our garden is a visiting fox! Here he is, on the lawn outside our windows.




I think he's quite young. And I'm not sure what he's staring at in such a bemused way.

I've finally upgraded my iPad and the wonderful BlogPress is working again, so I hope this will post!

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Not the Old Bailey

Friday 1st March

This Friday was the next date we had been given for the hearing at the Old Bailey to discuss jurisdiction over the person accused of killing my cousin. It appears he may need both to be tried here, for my cousin's killing, and in Germany for another killing. Having to go to the Old Bailey was the reason my sister and I had to return from Malta - otherwise we could have stayed there for the weekend.

During the week, things became more complicated. E, our Family Liaison Officer, called me to say a colleague of hers would have to take us to court, as she had another appointment. She said she would let me know by text on Thursday afternoon, (when the court lists for Friday are published) the time of the hearing next morning, as well as giving me the phone number of her colleague who would meet us. As I hadn't heard from her by the time we were boarding the plane, I sent her a reminder text.

Unknown to us, there was a further complication. The judge is currently sitting on a case at Chelmsford Crown Court.  The original plan appears to have been to use the video link - Judge in Chelmsford, the rest of us in the Old Bailey; that's how it was published on the court lists at around 4 pm on Thursday. But then somebody noticed that the video link was already in use, because the accused needs to use it, as he does not attend in person but by video link from the secure hospital. So at about 5pm it was decided that, since it was a bit late to transfer the hearing to Chelmsford, the best thing was to cancel the hearing - by which time we were in the air! Once the list has been published, it seems there is no publication of cancellations. So I assume it's up to phone calls and word of mouth. 

Even more unfortunately, E, our Family Liaison Officer, had developed 'flu; she decided that, instead of texting me, she would phone me at 7.30 after we had landed; unfortunately, the poor woman fell asleep instead.

We landed to find no message, and sent a further frantic text to E, to no avail. So we collected our baggage, found the free Wi-Fi at Heathrow, sat down and logged on to get the court lists. We found the case listed at the Bailey for 9.30 in a numbered court, but the Judge sitting in Chelmsford. And we knew the accused was already on a video link from the secure hospital, so we couldn't understand how it would be done.

Anyway, it seemed best that my sister and I stayed together. So, instead of going to my house, I went home with my sister. We considered we would need to be at the Old Bailey by 9. With no message from E about her colleague who was to be her substitute, we had to assume we were on our own. If you go to court with a police officer, you can sit in the court itself and you just turn off your phone before you go in. If you have to go into the public gallery, you can't take your phone with you, and there is nowhere for you to leave it at the Old Bailey; you apparently have to leave it in a local shop, paying for the privilege. We needed to find the shop - hence my going home with my sister, as the chance of our meeting without phones was nil, and I needed to keep my phone until we went into court, in case E or some other officer decided to contact me after all.

At 5am on Friday morning, E woke up from her 'flu induced sleep and nearly had a fit when she read my texts; she immediately sent me a hurried text, which woke me up. I cancelled my early alarm and set another for 7, so I could tell my sister not to bother getting up. Later on, E called me to explain what had happened. Poor woman sounded so ill; having been a teacher (in a different life) I know how difficult it is when the kind of work you do doesn't really permit you to be ill.

The bad part is that, for the moment the case seems to be being transferred to Chelmsford Crown Court, and is currently scheduled for 9am on Thursday 7th. E says the police can take us to Chelmsford, which is just as well, as the complications of getting all the way there in the very early morning would otherwise make our lives quite difficulty. However, that's the day Paul gets back from the United States and he has no key to get into the house! I imagine we might have to leave before 7 am, long before Paul arrives. 

Of course, the date could change! I won't necessarily know what is happening until Wednesday night. The court lists are published between 2 and 4 pm the day before. I have noticed that the Old Bailey are often late in publishing (then this time, cancelled the hearing at 5pm.)  I don't even know if my sister will be able come, she would need to go into work very late. If she can come, I think I might stay with her so there will be fewer complications for the journey to Chelmsford.

Leaving Malta

Thursday 28th February

When we woke up on our last day on Malta, and only a half day at that, we found it was bright and sunny and much the warmest day we had had so far; it seemed a shame to be leaving on such a beautiful day, especially when we had had some cold and windy days earlier on.

We had an early breakfast and checked out of the hotel shortly after 9.30, leaving our suitcases for collection later. We caught a bus into Valletta, where we planned to walk the ramparts right round the city, a walk that takes around 2 hours. It was a little difficult to find the way onto ramparts at first, since so much restoration work is being done at the entrance to the city and streets are blocked off. This is the reason I have posted no photographs of the gate into the city; any photo would just be full of dust, workmen, cranes and hoardings.

We started at the western side, in gardens called Hastings Gardens. We were able to look out over Marsamxetto Harbour, and across the water slightly to the west of Sliema, where we had been staying.

One thing we noticed immediately was the thickness of the walls, they must have been at least 15 or 20 feet thick; no wonder Valletta was viewed as impregnable.

That section of the wall looked down on what had originally been a gate, with a long, narrow dog-leg shaped entry - minimising the field of fire for assailants, making it impossible for them to get a good run up with a ram to the gate, and exposing the them to fire down from the wall above for a long way. For most of the way round the ramparts, it would have been difficult to assault the walls with ladders, since the top of the wall was so thick and sloped downwards and outwards at quite a steep angle. Of course, the fortifications were built after the Great Siege of 1565, so the Knights of St John would have had a great deal of experience of what worked in the way of fortifications!

We were able to walk round most of the ramparts as far as Fort St Elmo at the end of the peninsula. The War Museum is there, but unfortunately we had no time for that. There are also clusters of horse-drawn buggies awaiting customers - perhaps some people flake out by the time they have walked that far and need a ride back. Valletta is not flat, so we did a good deal of climbing up and down steps, and also slogging up some very steep streets. Some of the streets are amazingly steep, one we climbed earlier in the week was so steep it had chevron shaped ridges in the tarmac to stop the cars sliding down it.

Once we had passed Fort St Elmo, we had rounded the point and were on the other side of the peninsula, looking over the ramparts down into the Grand Harbour. On the opposite side of the harbour from Valletta looking east is an area known as the Three Cities, one of which, Vittoriosa, we had visited on Tuesday. We could look across to Fort St Angelo, where Caravaggio was imprisoned after he committed crimes in Malta. 

The building where he was imprisoned is the one with the cross on top.

We were on the eastern ramparts near the monument to the siege of Malta and the bombing in the Second World War. This is a handsome cupola which houses a big bell that is struck every day at midday.

There is also an enormous statue, which was erected at the point where there had been a huge gun - the metal tracks used to turn the gun are still there, set in the stone.

The next part of the walk was round to the Lascaris battery, from where the noon gun is fired. The necessitated a slog up the steepest street yet - it is too steep for cars, so it is just steps. It is also very long, and we had to stop for a breather several times. No doubt people who live on streets like this, of which there are quite a few, keep very fit!

We arrived at the Lascaris battery at about 5 minutes to midday, so we were able to join the crowds of tourists looking down on the gun battery to watch the noonday gun being fired. According to the commentary, there were originally 3 guns, at sunrise, noon and sunset, because most of the population didn't have any other means of telling the time. The noon gun is the only one fired now.

After this, we were practically back at the city gate and it was nearly time to get the bus back to collect our suitcases. We just had time to look in one shop for souvenirs before picking up a snack to eat later, then we had to rush round to the bus station for the bus back to Sliema. We were back in good time to collect our suitcases, and were able to sit on the sea front eating our snack while waiting for the airport bus.

At the airport, there was free Wi-Fi, so I was able to post 2 days worth of blog.

Malta Day 5 - Mdina and Rabat

Wednesday 27 February

As this was our last full day on Malta, we were determined to see as much as possible, so set off early to catch the bus to Rabat. There are only 2 buses an hour, and we arrived with plenty of time to spare, so of course the bus was more than 15 minutes late. However, there was plenty of space inside, so we had seats for the hour long journey. When we arrived in Rabat, we wasted quite some time wandering up and down before finding what we had gone to see, the Domus Romana (which was not well signposted from the point of view of pedestrians getting off the buses). 

This is a Roman town house, which was discovered at the end of the 19th Century. The finds are housed in a small Museum at the site. There are some beautiful finds in it - not all from the site, some from other sites, and some from goodness knows where.

Archeology was not too precise at the end of the 19th Century. The mosaics from the site are said to rival those of Pompeii. They certainly were beautiful, though nothing like the size of those we saw in Sicily.

We then walked back into Rabat, whose narrow streets we found very picturesque

We paused for a coffee break in a delightful café we found quite by chance in a back alley. It was tiny, and we had to climb a very narrow spiral staircase to sit at one of about 6 tables on a balcony which overhung the interior of a shop. The kind lady inside directed us towards the Catacombs of St Paul's cathedral, which we then found without difficulty. The streets were so narrow we found it hard to believe we were indeed in a main street, but we were. The cathedral, when we found it, was shut. We wondered if churches were ever open in Malta; perhaps, as in Britain, there is a problem with theft and vandalism and they have to be kept locked to foil such crimes.

Anyway, we found the catacombs open, so we went there. The audio guide we were given referred to the catacombs as 'hypogea', and they were certainly dug out of the rock by Romans and early Christians, and some were cut out to imitate things found in the world above - not megaliths but tables at which meals could be taken. No flash photos could be taken in the main area, but there was a much smaller area to which we were directed first, and there seemed to be no such prohibition there.

This first photo shows the table, used perhaps for a funeral feast. This type of table apparently started as a Roman dining area, a triclinium, but in Malta the table and benches became fused together. There is also a rim round the table, which would seem to indicate it was used for liquid, and the break in the rim might have allowed the liquid to drain out into something. 

The tombs themselves were of different types. The photo shows some through the small arch which were cut almost to resemble beds. Sometimes these small 'rooms' could contain a number of tombs and could be sealed off with a stone, like the one in the next photo.

It is carved to show surgeon's tools, indicating the profession of those buried behind it.

Other tombs could be cut like a sarcophagus, and closed with a stone lid, or even roof tiles. Some people, especially children, could be buried in niches cut in the wall. 

After some time spent wandering about in the dark underground we were thoroughly chilled and very glad to emerge out again into the sunlight and make our way out of Rabat, across the bus terminus and into Mdina.

Mdina is tinier than I had imagined, in fact it has only 400 inhabitants. It is a walled city, surrounded once by a moat (currently being renovated) and with an imposing city gate. It dates from well before the times of the Knights of St John. It was originally built by the Romans, and reduced in size and re-fortified by the Arabs. When Aragon ruled Malta it became a medieval city, and has retained much of this medieval character. The main street runs more or less down the centre - after a left and then a right turn, but most of the streets built off it are narrow and angled. This was deliberate, to deflect arrows and make shooting difficult.

We went into the Cathedral Museum and then the Cathedral. We were really too tired to appreciate the museum by the time we got there. It houses medieval choir books, silver plate, and a very interesting coin collection spanning 2000 years, where we spent some time. There is also a collection of paintings which we hardly had the energy to examine, apart from some very fine Dürer engravings. Photographs are not allowed at all, but I snatched this of a particularly exquisite one.

The Cathedral is across the square from the museum, and had to be re-built after an earthquake in 1693. It is another fine Baroque building, and somewhat reminiscent of the Cathedral in Valletta inside, though considerably less grand and less decorated. It also has a floor made of decorated marble tombstones, but these ones can be walked on and photographed. Not too many are adorned with the skulls and skeletons of the ones in Valletta cathedral, but I managed to find one!

We were too tired by then to do a lot more. We wandered the streets to the far end of the town, pausing to admire the view over central Malta and the huge sweep of the landscape. We also wandered into a few shops selling Mdina glass, but were too tired to buy anything. Eventually we accepted the fact that it was time to go back, and caught a bus for the long journey back to Sliema - over an hour this time, because of heavy traffic. This meant that there was no trip to Valletta today to use the Wi-Fi in McDonalds, so I'm not sure when this and last night's one can be posted - not tonight anyway. And tomorrow we set off back home.