church-side wisdom and wonder

I emerged from the south entrance of the church at Z, there to find two elderly men leaning against the wall, drinking in the view of a tour bus disgorging slow-moving Britons. I studied them studying the world, and then noticed what seemed to be stone cannon jutting from high up on the church wall. Typically you'll find bronze cannon on the church porch, but these were sculpted stone barrels. "to what end," I asked the senior pair, "are these cannon up there?". They chortled at the question: these are gutter-spouts, they explained. Where in Northern Europe you would find vomiting gargoyles clamped onto Gothic cathedrals, here these stone muzzles shoot out water when the rains are heavy, and the church roof is draining. Limestone, baroque aggression sent a completely different message from the granite demons of the North. This church was like a caravel, a warship, a castle. The yellow guns spoke of aggression, paranoia, and fear subsumed under brash bombast and declarations of might.

The two old guys, having gifted me a fact, insisted that I remain for "one more", a saying in Maltese. "If anyone asks you, tell them that El B from from this town told you this one" was the preamble and set-up, and then: "the lazy man enjoys the riches of the hard worker" and finally filthy laughter from the pair of them. the coda: "in life it's not how much you have, but how you pass the time!" and more grins, flashing occasional teeth.

After thanking them for the local lore and universal wisdom, I wheeled away, one boy in tow and the other on my back. The men vocally delighted in the blonde hair and the "obviously English" boys mutely shadowing me. And off we went.

Epilogue:

Retreating from the church, a slow encounter with three approaching lasses evolved into a dumb show, a mute display of amazement and wonder. They spoke neither to me nor to each other, but pointed, touched, beckoned and gasped, all in perfect silence. The blonde boy holding my hand was the lure, but the grand surprise, the jack-in-the-box, was the Julian on my back; each stared, drew breath, grasped her nearest comrade, and put a hand to her mouth. This was pure delight. And so they moved on, sharply dressed, to church.

the little blue hole, zonqor point, malta

so this book by peter lemon described a mini blue hole right near the dive shop i frequent. the book was a gift from friends here, so i resolved to say 'thanks' by taking them on a dive which, but for the book, we would never have done.

i scouted ahead and walked down a terrible, though wide, track on the limestone coastal edge. stopping to survey some cracks in the sloping rock, i was surrounded by birdsong. 'how refreshing', i thought, but only in the moments before i noticed the battery of caged birds on poles, marshalled around a broad field. these were living trappers' toys, planted up off the ground to lure wild finches and such down to the be-netted soil*

after some scrabbling and scrambling on scree and soft rock, i discovered the hole, which was sucking in sea. it was about ten-fifteen paces from the shoreline, and sheltered from land-side by a big shelf of rock above. a quick scan around pointed out a couple of entry points: key thing here is that you're supposed to dive into the open sea and then swim through the access way and visit the hole. eventually Mark proposed a wise giant-stride entry point, which was spot-on. it landed us in a fish-full bowl formed by boulders and gulleys.

side-note: this is all supremely tiny scale. daylight is visible throughout the dive. and i calculated that you could swim from the hole to the open sea on one breath.

it took us 45 minutes to empty our cars, parked up on the dirt-track, and shuttle the bits of kit down rubble ramps and stretches of blonde rock. this activity warmed us up no end, and to punctuate all that wrestling and dragging of equipment with some close-range neoprenics was ... unwelcome. later, when we surfaced inside the hole, i was uncomfortably warm even after 15 minutes submerged.

my dive profile would resemble a neolithic saw-blade, or jaw-blade even; there were many ridges to cross as we swam parallel to shore, and none of us could resist ducking down into the cracks to eye-ball the fireworms and sea-pens and various nefarious tiny things.

faunal highlight: an octopus clutching a decaying fish (a small comber, methinks). after the usual stare-out it began to spill out of its hole, and in doing so seemed to offer up its snack. one inking later, it had calmed itself sufficiently to float up over the shell-strewn flat patch and do a mid-water eating dance; with tentacles flailing it tucked into the fish carcass. our minds supplied the requisite Dr Zoidberg noises.

we spent an hour or more underwater, with plenty of time to float down and just watch things happen. at one point i found myself with my head nearly jammed into a cleft in the reef. i was overwhelmed by the proximity of all sorts of ridiculous and horrendous creatures. a knot of fireworms to my left, sick, slick sponges at the corner of vision, several invasive species of crab shifting position defensively. i backed away, conscious of having been in a curious mental state: the realisation had come upon me that this place was, while trivially shallow and close to normal life, irretrievably alien.

*as we piled our kit back into the cars, the bald trapper ambled along the edge of the field, and then set course for Mark, my dive buddy. in Maltese he gently requested that, next time, we should park further down the path so that we "could enjoy going down under water" while he could enjoy bird-trapping undisturbed. we deduced that our cars' proximity reduced the effectiveness of his trapping field. i muttered a cowardly "fuck you, and i'm glad we did" as he strode off.