The long way home.

Besides offering me opportunity for performance through song, dance and drama, and also the chance to forge new friendships, the Panto is also causing me to become more familiar with the geography of the Hamrun-Santa Venera area.

I used to live up in Mrieħel as a child, but then we moved and I've never really had cause to spend much time up in that neck of the woods. Now, however, I am heading there most nights in the week, usually by bus.

The Hamrun main road looks interesting – lots of shops, which is handy with Christmas coming up. I plan to explore it more in the coming weeks as I have some time to kill between work and rehearsals. I shall work my way along the road, a section at a time.

I've also discovered a DVD shop near the clubrooms, and subscribed to it. This week I found out that they have some classic musical films so I shall work my way through them. Doris Day, Judy Garland, aaah...

Just opposite the DVD shop there's a music shop that I had never been to before – Barbara's. I've already bought a set of drum brushes (hopefully I will figure out how to use them) and I have my eye on a shoulder rest but the shop owner was very dubious that I would be able to figure out a way to attach one to my electric violin. I'm not very good at violin yet, and I've been making do with a bandanna I nicked off my sister, so I've been trying to get hold of a shoulder rest because it should help with my technique (and Lord knows I need all the help I can get). So yes, plenty of retail opportunity over there by the Sta Venera pjazza.


Yesterday after dance rehearsal I got a lot better acquainted with the local geography.

Usually I get the bus to just before the Fleur De Lys roundabout and then walk down to the Santa Venera Pjazza, but I imagine that I should be able to get off at an earlier bus stop and take a more direct route. The thing is, I don't know the way through the side streets from the main road to the Pjazza. So my plan was to go to rehearsal on Saturday afternoon like I usually do, but then afterwards attempt to head out the main road more directly, to find out which way to go.

So, that's what I did. After Miss Alison was finished with us (and nearly finished us) I walked from the Pjazza to Barbara's music shop (which is on a corner) and I headed down the left-hand road. I walked down it, looking out for the Hamrun-Santa Venera main road. After a little bit, I saw a busy road a few blocks to the left. It was in the wrong direction but I investigated it anyway. It turned out to be the main road that runs by St. Philip's Hospital. Not the road I was looking for.

I backtracked and continued on my way.


I walked and walked and walked and walked... it was back streets all the way, and I had no idea where I was. Eventually I found myself by Centro Casalinga. I definitely took a wrong turn somewhere. I took the opportunity to look around the Lidl over there, but they didn't have any wellington boots.

From there, I turned right and walked a little more. In the distance I saw the back of a statue of a saint high up in the air, floodlit and presumably on the top of a church. I figured that civilisation (or that part of it which I was in search of) lay over there. Finally I ended up somewhere more or less familiar. I was pretty sure that I was in Hamrun, and that it wasn't far from the Floriana-Marsa main road, from where I could get a bus straight home instead of getting one towards Valletta first. So since there wasn't far to go, and since it was downhill, I decided to keep walking instead of getting on a bus from where I was.

So I walked some more, and finally I did unequivocally recognise where I was.

Blata l-Bajda.

Great.


I was at the roundabout just downhill from the Maria Regina school. Fine, I turned right and slogged uphill past the football club until I reached the Hamrun main road, the road I had been in search of all this time.

I was right at the end of Hamrun, all I needed to do was to get to the Floriana-Marsa road and cross it.

I spotted an alley leading downhill which probably led to that road. I peered cautiously down it, looking for dark shadows that could be hiding potential muggers, but although it looked less than salubrious, it was decently lit and completely deserted.

So that's how I got to the Floriana-Marsa road, but I was still on the wrong side of it and I didn't fancy taking my life into my hands to cross it. No worries, I thought, there's a set of traffic lights just a little ways down the road. A little ways, hah.

Well I did eventually get there, I crossed the road and got to my bus stop. Total time spent walking – one hour.

Not the quickest way to get home, but good for burning a few calories I suppose.


Next time, I think I'll turn right at Barbara's.