The public holiday known as ‘L’Imnajra’ that falls on 29 June, has to be one of Malta’s most obscure in origin and defies neat description. In the religious calendar, the day marks the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, but this Maltese celebration, which starts on the night of 28 June and carries on all the next day into evening, is probably less to do with religion and more about rural life, country past-times and folk music.

It’s a bit of a medley really. It’s also associated with one place only in Malta, as people flock to celebrate it in Buskett Gardens that lie between Rabat and Dingli. It’s a family affair with people taking picnics and tents to spend a night out under the small pines which make up Malta’s largest stretch of woodland, planted by the Knights as a hunting grounds.

The feast has roots dating back well before the time of the Knights in Malta. ‘L’Imnajra’ is the Maltese corruption of the Italian word ‘Luminara’ meaning festival of light. The feast’s celebrations were once marked by bonfires lit in Mdina and Rabat, so folklore has it.

What to Expect
The night is characterised by general merry-making and its sociable atmosphere, with people bringing along instruments and making music. Local folk and ethnic-inspired bands usually turn up to play and set the scene. Families have BBQs and picnics and kids romp around. Traditionally, people take rabbit (Fenek) stew to eat. It’s a Maltese national dish and there’s even a Maltese word for ‘going out to eat rabbit’ – Fenkata! Some families and groups of friends make a complete summer night of L’Imarja and camp out.

The following day sees more organised rural pursuits: there is an agricultural show, which gets larger each year (seems to be a trend in Malta recently) as well as traditional bare-back horse and donkey races on Saqqajja Hill below Mdina. So expect some traffic chaos and roads blocked around that area.

Visitor Value
If you want to see some real Malta, then this could be worth a visit. It’s not the sheer exuberance of a village feast, as it’s more a summer folklore and farming affair. But it does have a certain appeal and charm. You will need to bus it there (Bus 81 from Valletta seems the best bet). Take some food and drink, get stuck in, and go with the flow. This is an impromptu affair in some ways, where people make their own fun.

Photo: John Haslam

Siggiewi’s now annual agricultural fare kicks off on tonight, Saturday 12 June, at dusk and runs till late morning on Sunday. It seems to get bigger (and better) each year, and far more marketing goes into the event – islanders in central Malta have no doubt caught a billboard or two roadside.

It’s a wonderful, easy-going mishmash of a livestock show, heritage event and farmers’ market – and an excuse for local folk to get some air on summer night and have somewhere to go. It’s a prelude to the villlage festa, just two weeks away. Siggiewi’s unusually large, sloping and picturesque village piazza is already decked out with festa regalia. It’s heart-warming that Malta is beginning to relish its rural past, and to see skills, crafts and genuine Maltese produce appreciated by young and old, and locals and visitors alike. There are several rural events now, including the Mgarr’s Strawberry Fair, and Dingli’s Sheep & Goat festival.

What to Expect
Based on last year’s event. you can expect some: Pageantry: we had a reenactment of the Grand Master handing over a falcon to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V as rental payment for the Maltese Islands.

Working machinery: Pride of place last year in the square was an ancient threshing machine that rattled and hummed into action, man atop loading straw, and was soon spewing out chaff all over the gathered crowd.

Artefacts of yesteryear: a small tent was set up last year housing old agricultural implements and canteen items that farmers would use in the fields to brew up coffee. In fact, you could see the brewing in action as nearby sat an old lady, in typical floral dress/apron, turning a coffee bean roaster over an open fire (see photo below). A stall next to her was serving the clove-flavoured coffee for free to an appreciative, and curious crowd.

Livestock: Falabella ponies, donkeys, prize sheep and goat breeds, some with their young, and a lama in pens which enthrall the kids. Sunday morning early is the ‘blessing’ of the animals and Sunday too saw some heavy horses on display.

Local Produce: both evening and morning saw stallholders selling some genuine local produce, including thyme honey, certified organic olive oil (impressively with an EU accreditation on it) and lots of peaches and tomatoes, which grow well in the Siggiewi area.

Maybe it’s because we’re all more aware of food miles and environmental issues these days, but agri-businesses of various hues, such as agri-tourism, have become increasingly popular among the Maltese as well as visitors to the islands seeking a more ‘authentic’ Malta experience. It might also be a knee-jerk reaction to our growing urban reality here.

Although Malta today has only around 3% of its population involved in the agriculture sector, the whole area is becoming quite ‘of the moment’. This spring alone we’ve posted on several fairs – Strawberry Fair in Mgarr; the Dingli (goat and sheep fest) in April; and soon we’ve the Siggiewi Rural Evening and Agricultural Fair (June 12-13). Here, Jeanette Borg, a lecturer at MCAST (Malta’s technical training college) talks about this coming weekend’s open days at its Institute of Agribusiness. It’s quite a family affair and certainly something worthwhile to visit with the kids over the weekend. It will also give prospective students a good insight into the courses on offer at the Agribusiness Institute.

MCAST Institute of Agribusiness
“Making the Change”

Agriculture is one of the most ancient industries that lead to the civilisation of mankind. It is through food production that populations grew and became wealthy. Malta is no exception. Until a few years ago, most of the Maltese people worked in the agricultural industry as farmers or herdsmen. It is only in the past few decades that other industries started absorbing the workforce.

Education is a crucial part for the way forward in all industries and this also applies to Agriculture. At the MCAST Institute of Agribusiness, education of agribusiness students is our main aim. At present the Institute of Agribusiness within MCAST has around a hundred full-time students and many other part-timers.

The institute is located in Qormi and surrounded with around one hectare of land. Olive and fruit trees together with a variety of vegetable crops occupy the fields in which the students put into practice the theory learnt in class. Rabbit and poultry units are also an important part of the institute as is the pets’ area where the students practice animal management and pet care. The conservation of biodiversity is another topic practised at the institute which is helping propagate and breed several local species – such as several endemic plants as well as Black Maltese chickens, a local breed facing extinction and which is being reared to conserve Maltese identity and genetic diversity.

To create awareness of this interesting and scientific sector, the Institute is holding an Open Weekend from 28th to 30th May, 2010. There will be an exhibition about the various topics taught at the Institute as well as tours around the fields and animal units. The weekend is for everyone who has nature, animal care, floriculture and the cultivation of crops at heart, especially prospective students interested in a challenging and satisfying career.

Had-Dingli, on Malta’s west coast, is holding a sheep and goat fair this Sunday, 25th April, on Dingli Cliffs in front of the small chapel of St Magdalena. For the early birds, it starts at the rise-and-shine hour of 7am but luckily runs most of the day for those of us who like a lie-in.

I have to admit, Sheep & Goat Fair was last year’s title. Strictly speaking, it’s billed this year as a ‘Traditional Agricultural Fair’ (Hidma Agrarja u Tradizzjanijiet), which means it has widened in scope to be a showcase of the agricultural life of the area, past and present. It will include a range of country displays, competitions, wine and food tastings, folk dancing, horse-drawn Karozzin rides, stalls, and fun and games, in addition to the goats and sheep.

There’s no place better than Dingli Cliffs to see these shaggy, mixed breed sheep and goats. It’s one of the few places you will see still these animals of indeterminate, but so useful a breed ambling along, plucking at weeds, shepherd somewhere alongside. It’s a real treat to come across them – a picture postcard shot of country life on our urban islands.

Sunday’s programme has plenty on it to while away a couple of hours and always plenty to engage the kids. I am sure there’ll be eats around, and not all Ġbejniet goats’ cheeselets either!

Fair Programme

From 7am-11am
Goat and Sheep Display
Milk competition with demonstration of how fresh cheeselets are made
Sheep milking demo

From 11am
Mass in front of the Chapel on the cliffs

During the Whole Day
Cultural and Ecological walks (worth noting that so-called Clapham Junction prehistoric ‘cart ruts’ are neaby, as is Buskett Gardens)
Rides in Karozzin – traditional horse drawn carriages
Wine Competition
Display of fresh fruit and vegetables
Traditional music, dancing and Ghana (Maltese folk singing)
Traditional games for children and adults
Various exhibitions of:
- Old-fashioned shepherds’ tools
- Maltese handicrafts
Displays by Dingli Scouts and Girl Guides

Related Posts
More info on Ghana, here (next Ghanafest, 4-6 June, 2010, Argotti Gardens. See What’s On for details.)
A lovely story about Maltese goats & yesteryear, click here
Agricultural Fair, Siggiewi (early June). Click here for what to expect. We will update once we have this year’s dates.

Photo: courtesy of Anne Muscat Scerri, Cloudberry Images.

I’ve been waking up early since the lighter, spring mornings. But apart from a few sparrows chirping in the olive tree below and the church bells ringing mass, it’s a quiet start to the day at 6am. But for how much longer?

Something is missing from spring – that other traditional Maltese wake up call, gun shot. Hunters lead shot isn’t yet peppering the spring dawn in my area. The question of whether it will or not this year is in limbo. MPs, NGOs both local and international, pro- and anti-bird hunting lobbies and the mass of regular citizens caught somewhere in the middle, wait to see if government will declare for or against opening a spring hunting season at all this year. If it does, the season will be mercifully short for birds, as spring is already ebbing away and according to some hunters the best pickings have already flown past.

Malta has to abide by the EU’s Birds’ Directive which expressly forbids spring hunting and trapping. But Malta has exercised its right of derogation – which is supposed to operate under very narrowly-defined clauses – to allow spring hunting since its EU membership in 2004; except in one year, 2008, following a European Court of Justice ruling which said Malta had broken the terms of the derogation by allowing quail and turtle dove hunting in spring.

If some 122,000 people, mostly from across Europe, had their way, Malta won’t have spring hunting at all with or without nice, legally-worded derogations being evoked. This was the number of people who signed a petition against Malta’s spring hunting that was handed in to the Office of the Prime Minister yesterday. The number of people handing it in was around 10, a group mostly made up of BirdLife Malta members.

In fact, the whole pro- or anti-bird hunting lobby issue is a numbers’ game: how many locals does BirdLife Malta speak for really? How many Maltese are anti-hunting but won’t stand up and be counted? How many hunters’ votes swing our various election results? How many protected birds are shot down illegally and during close seasons? How many hunters shooting birds illegally slur the name of the (legally operating) hunting fraternity…and so on.

The end sum of course isn’t really about numbers or how long the spring hunting season should or shouldn’t be. The real issue is illegal hunting – and its spring hunting season is well under way while hot air gets traded everywhere from Brussels to Malta.

Sean Mallia, who took the photos here, says it all: “I was right next to the kestrel, with just a 50mm lens, it had an injured foot and wing because it was slightly hit from a hunter, so it couldn’t fly away. Then someone from birdlife came to pick it up right away. Poor thing was shot to the ground, but lives.”

That one might live to see flight (in both senses) and another day. But let’s hope it doesn’t pass over Malta next time as it migrates. And I hope I don’t start hearing gun shot at 6am.

Photos: courtesy of Sean Mallia (great shots Sean, many thanks for sharing!).

As if right on cue to mark the official arrival of spring, Malta’s mimosa is out in flower. Patches of countryside and many roadside verges have been transformed in the past week or two by the golden domes of these shrubby acacias with their showers of droplet-like flowers. Spring in Malta may be short a season, but it packs more punch for it. And the mimosa, along with the lighter yellow English weed and other spring flowers, covers the islands in yellow.

A good place to see mimosa in abundance and photograph it is along the main road from Mosta to Burmarrad (St Paul’s Bay direction). Both sides have long rows of mimosa – with the best spectacle a little way across a field. The verges are wide enough there to stop your car and take a photo.

The mimosa was first described by the renowned Swedish botanist, Carl Linnaeus, in 1773 in Africa. Australia holds the record number of types of mimosa – some 950 out of 1,300. The mimosa has spread to almost any part of the world that offers a warm, temperate climate whether tropical or quite arid, as here in Malta. So while not a native, it’s very much at home, and a welcome alternative to the golden yellow of our ubiquitous stone. Set against spring green, it’s all the more majestic and colourful a shrub.

In some parts of the Mediterranean, mimosa is used as the base for perfumes, though for those prone to allergies or hay fever, it can be an unwelcome irritant. We don’t have it in such volume here in Malta though to harvest and it’s left to its own devices in waste land and fields. Its flowering will soon be over so enjoy it while you can.

Photo: Paul Downey

The place to find green all year round in Malta isn’t the countryside, but our manicured urban areas. Here, roundabouts sport neat turf, irrigation sprinklers (sometimes on in the full heat of summer at 1pm for some reason), evergreen trees and a variety of annual colour – flowering rosemary, gaudily bright pelargoniums and various bedding plants.

The area of even turf can be so large on some roundabouts that kids in the back of my car often remark that they’d make tempting places to play football. Pitches here are Astroturf or gritty dust bowls usually.

Where do Malta’s green fingers come from?
The colour and variety of our roundabouts changes almost monthly as the public-private cooperative, Environmental Landscapes Consortium (ELC), that maintains them, seems to have a constant supply of seasonal plants from its Wied Incita Nursery on the Attard-Mdina/Rabat road. And, of course, replanting all the time keeps people nicely employed. I do wonder at tender pansies out in late February when they can be beaten down in an instant by the vicious rains and high winds we can still have this time of year.

A delight for drivers
Since Malta has large urban areas, with towns cheek by jowl, and a high density of cars on the road per head of population (Malta ranks 5th worldwide for cars per 1,000 people) we drivers spend a lot of time crawling along. So, we’ve have come to appreciate the greening of our urban landscape that has been going on since 2003 when ELC started up. For an interesting read on Malta’s car density issue, click here, and scroll down.

The approach to Valletta along St Anne street, Floriana is always a riot of colour despite registering some of Malta’s worst emission and particulate pollution. The roundabouts in Qormi, another heavily urban area, are a welcome sight as are the planted-up central reservations on the Regional Road. Even several countryside verges have had a make-over.

We’ve also bougainvillea attempting to clad the unsightly walls on the Kappara hill part of the Regional Road. How they will be watered in so dangerous a place till their roots find solace deep below Tarmac, I don’t know.

Urban safety first, urban plants second
In fact, the only negative thing I can say about the whole urban verge and roundabout greening is the traffic hazard posed by the badly parked vans of the maintenance staff or bowsers. It’s quite common to round a bend or emerge from a tunnel and suddenly find a maintenance van parked in your lane without prior warning. A few cones aren’t enough; we need notices saying ‘lane closed, men at work in 500m’, to give us time to change lane safely and avoid screeching to a halt with the potential of a mass of ‘front-to-rear’ bumps. I am waiting for the day an ELC man or a bowser guy is mowed down too.

We like the green, but with a few more cones, some commonsense and caution, we’d like the greening that much more.

Spring in Malta is often quoted as being the best time of the year. But is very brief, and sometimes almost non-existent. I always say I go from wearing boots to flip-flops in week in Malta, so abrupt is the changing of the seasons.

The ‘mezzo tempo’, as our neighbours the Italians call spring (and autumn too), is a season rarely worth buying any clothes for. You may find yourself overdressed and sweating one day, or without enough layers the next having assumed the sun would continue. But it’s not worth planning for, as fashion houses do.

Today though was a beautiful day, which would lighten any heart and a day to be out in the blue and warmth as long as possible. We walked the short, but stunning cliff-top path from Ghajn Tuffieha Bay to Golden Bay. It’s our regular spring walk as it has amazing flowers budding up as well as great views. En route, we mulled over ‘how you can tell spring is round the corner in Malta’. Here’s our list of the obvious and the not so:

Everybody rediscovers the countryside.

There are more bikers on the road.

The first lizards emerge.

The cat’s tail starts to twitch more.

The new range of sunglasses shows up.

Tourists start going pink after minimal sun exposure.

You start seeking some shade when sitting out at cafes – but the shade is still a tad chill.

The lads in the ‘festa’ building are there more often renovating old decorations for the coming summer.

The green slime on limestone walls and stone floors starts to disappear.

It hasn’t rained for two weeks.

Lidl supermarket’s special offer days include gardening equipment – gloves, trellises and watering cans.

What’s left of the fields start to sparkle in yellow English weed and red poppies.

The Eurovision song contest is back on the agenda.

Heads peer down wells to determine water levels.

The cafes on the beach start getting repainted.

People start washing their cars.

Householders start inspecting peeling paint on doors and windows

Some people think about fasting for Lent.

The light is just beautiful. The sky is cobalt.

Low-cost airlines now offer more times and routes but seasonally adjust their fares.

Working parents realise there’s only one more full term before the long summer holiday, and start thinking of summer schools!

Spring hunting debates rumble.

Therese Debono rekindles a childhood passion and pastime – cloud busting – and shares some of the hairy and peaceful moments of capturing stunning cloud formations on film.

Since a young age, I have always been fascinated by clouds. I guess every kid makes shapes out of clouds passing by. My earliest recollection is of my cousin and I lying on our backs in our grandfather’s garden….cloud gazing, trying to find some human form or other in the clouds. Our respective parents used to always say we had our heads in the clouds, and they were far from being mistaken!

Years later…..and I am still cloud gazing, or rather chasing at this point because if there is one thing I love shooting, its clouds. There is something about the play of light on clouds and their shapes which really make me want to chase and capture beautiful shots.

My cloud chasing though began quite by chance. I was down taking a few seascape shots in Gnejna last November and I was captivated with these big fluffy white clouds and since then I just haven’t stopped looking for them.

It is quite dangerous sometimes especially when I am driving, and all I want to do is look up! It’s not the first time that I found myself driving as fast as I possibly can to reach the perfect destination with the perfect clouds……the search is endless really. The evening colours can be surprising too and add more to a shot. It’s a matter of timing and also luck with clouds. It can also be disappointing, but perseverance pays and so far my cloud chasing expeditions have always left me thrilled and pleased!

It’s also thanks to this that I have learnt to appreciate more our nature, our beautiful Maltese landscapes and seascapes and also how to read the light. I am more aware now of sunset times and more often than not, it’s a race against time, running after these clouds right after work when at 5pm it’s usually rush hour….whereas I am in a rush chasing clouds….

Going home from work has become an appointment I never miss. With my camera in the front seat, I look up at the sky and head in the direction of the best clouds…….

This shot above was the first of the series of my cloud chasing. Shot at Gnejna in November 09, I just couldn’t resist the giant sized clouds drifting along. In contrast with the blue sky, this shot deserved a beautiful yet simple backdrop, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time.

We’ll be featuring a series of Therese’s moody and magnificent clouds in the coming week or so.

Photo: ‘Gazing at Clouds going by’, Therese Debono

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