What a weekend!!!

Oh my goodness, where to start from. Well, to put you a little bit in the picture, these past few weeks have been quite tough as my thesis is based on the first four weeks of school and therefore it was non stop preparing and running around. Anyway, last week all was done but then I had to catch up on the assignments which I got during my first week at uni. STRESS. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Jonathan told me he had to go up to Gozo Saturday evening to film and was wondering if I would like to go up for the weekend with some others. At first I said no... I wasn't even thinking of going Saturday night let alone the whole weekend, but as the days past I decided I needed a break so I worked like crazy and told Jon we would go. So on Friday evening, after dinner at my cousins' house (Elaine and Enrico)... beautiful, amazing house... Jon and I drove like mad to get the 11 o'clock boat, only to be told that the time table on the internet was wrong and the next one is at midnight. Mishap number one. We didn't mind so much, it was more that we had people waiting for us on the other side. Anyway, made it to Gozo, garaged the van will all the filming stuff and went to the flat. Slept. Woke up Saturday morning and went for breakfast to this place in Rabat and then went to Ta'Pinu church to start setting up. At about midday we all went for lunch and I ended up with five guys in the van with us while Lawrence kindly decided to take the valley roads making us go offroading for about five minutes while I had to try and avoid being covered in mud which Jon was purposely driving through! Heh. Anyway, had lunch, went back to the church, went to the flat to shower and change and back again to the church. This time the filming team decided to film and edit on the spot which was hectic but fun at the same time and I got to do the sound :) Afterwards we packed up and I brilliantly twisted my ankle. It didn't hurt too much at all but yesterday the pain started coming and now it won't go away :( Anyway, afterwards we went out to eat and about an hour later left to go back to the flat cause it was raining hard. Very hard. So hard that on our way back to the flat we had to stop because the road was like a river flowing down so quickly we would have been dragged away. So we waited in the van and then my brave men decided to go outside in the rain to survey the surroundings leaving myself and Ian in the van. (The two sensible ones basically) About a minute later the road lights go out... pitch darkness and we hear the boys scrambling back with Pedro groaning because he walked into the back of Simon's head which apparently, is very hard when you hit it! The rain slowed down and we decided to give it a try and managed to get back safely. Problem. No lights. What was going to be a fun night chatting turned into a night with everyone except myself and two others awake thinking what we could do because we didn't feel like sleeping. So then I thought we should call Enemlata to see how long it would take for the lights to come back. Hehe... 5 minutes he says. 20 minutes later I call back and again he says 5 minutes cause they are waiting for permission from Malta. So I call Malta enemlata and they say hours... great damage! I put the phone down and bam... the lights are back. So once again we call Enemalta in Gozo to thank them (such good Christians) and they ask where we are sounding quite surprised because Enemalta itself still has no light! :) hehe. Then we went to sleep, satisfied that we had brought light back to Gozo. Sunday morning we wake up at 11 am only to find a protected species of a bird in our balcony. Jon catches it. It's injured. We decide to save it. So we went to Maraslforn to meet Angelique and Joe and have the biggest lunch ever! All the while the bird is in the van. Then, because the weather was so bad we decide to head home but because Joseph Mario Maggi's van was so large we were not allowed on the boat we intended to catch and therefore had to wait another hour to get on the next one even though the rest of us could have left, but now we are a team, glues together by the heart and our love for well... am... something. All the while, the bird is in the van. We get to Malta, and now we separate so guess who gets to hold the dying bird all the way to Birzebbugia... ME! I admit, towards the end I did start to love him except for the time I thought he had died and through him at Jon with horror. Please note, Jonathan was driving. So we made it to B'Bugia and took him to the police where there was a Bird Life rep. waiting for us to take it to safety. Now it's back to normal life even though I think the bond that was created in this weekend will remain... sniff:) Anyway, so there was my weekend. If you would like more detail visit Simon's blog as he too wrote about this weekend with other details. Till now... I miss you all guys, and may God be with you Franky the bird.