Monday, April 8
Apr. 8th, 2024 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
A beautiful day today. Sunny and warm.
I went to town for pottery today.
For part of it I worked by myself, and later another person showed up. I know her, but I don't often work with her by ourselves. She's usually here earlier, when everyone else works.
She works part time at the local women's shelter, and it sounds like she had a rough day; she said there was a woman there today that they couldn't help. She can't say more than that.
She did go on to talk about her own experiences with abuse and so on, so I just let her talk.
I trimmed the items I threw on Thursday, and tried to be a bit interesting with my textures, and I threw one new piece today.
Then I got some groceries, and I once again saw the couple that I see pretty well every time I get groceries, and even interacted with them a bit when we both stopped to donate food at the bin by the exit.
I see them a LOT. To the point where I'm even noticing if their hair looks different today.
I came home and my Sweetie had cooked some veggies for me. We chatted briefly, but he needed to get to bed so we didn't talk for long. That's often how Monday goes.
Malta is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an archipelago. There are over half a million people living there, making it quite densely populated, and pretty much the entire main island is covered in buildings, so it is also a city-state.
Malta's location has"historically given it great strategic importance as a naval base, with a succession of powers having contested and ruled the islands, including the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Knights of St. John, French, and British."
It became a British Colony in 1813, and served as an important naval base. It was still a British base during WWI, and many soldiers were taken there to recover from their wounds.
"Since the island was so far off from the battlefront, it was the perfect medical recovery outpost. The Gallipoli campaign, as well as the Salonika one meant that 136,121 wounded or sick soldiers were treated in Malta. An average of 2,000 wounded soldiers started arriving in Malta from the front every week, while the record for the most patients treated in one day stands at an astonishing 20,994. Malta had, at its peak, 27 hospitals with 334 medical officers, 913 nurses, and 25,000 beds to provide optimum care to those arriving from the front."
https://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2018-11-10/local-news/Malta-in-WW1-The-Nurse-of-the-Mediterranean-in-the-eyes-of-the-ANZACs-6736199119
"During the war Malta played an important role for the Allies; being a British colony, situated close to Sicily and the Axis shipping lanes, Malta was bombarded by the Italian and German air forces. Malta was used by the British to launch attacks on the Italian Navy and had a submarine base. It was also used as a listening post, intercepting German radio messages including Enigma traffic.[125] The bravery of the Maltese people during the second siege of Malta moved King George VI to award the George Cross to Malta on a collective basis on 15 April 1942. Some historians argue that the award caused Britain to incur disproportionate losses in defending Malta."
When Malta gained independence in 1964, for a while it kept the Queen as it's head of state, but in 1974 became a republic. Not long afterwards the British closed up it's naval base, and all lands held by Britain were returned.
Overall human rights are good here; it is very supportive of LBGTQ communities, protects freedom of religion, and so on. Abortion is still completely illegal.
There is no wilderness to speak of, and the islands are mostly low hills covered in buildings.
The country relies on tourism, and is developing it's financial services sector. Traditionally they had limestone quarries, but I don't know how much they currently mine from those. They are working with the European Space Agency as well, though I'm not sure in what capacity. They do grow a lot of grapes, and have a wine industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta
https://youtu.be/Qee_dxMvids?si=l4QbcgiQiSENvFDo
A beautiful day today. Sunny and warm.
I went to town for pottery today.
For part of it I worked by myself, and later another person showed up. I know her, but I don't often work with her by ourselves. She's usually here earlier, when everyone else works.
She works part time at the local women's shelter, and it sounds like she had a rough day; she said there was a woman there today that they couldn't help. She can't say more than that.
She did go on to talk about her own experiences with abuse and so on, so I just let her talk.
I trimmed the items I threw on Thursday, and tried to be a bit interesting with my textures, and I threw one new piece today.
Then I got some groceries, and I once again saw the couple that I see pretty well every time I get groceries, and even interacted with them a bit when we both stopped to donate food at the bin by the exit.
I see them a LOT. To the point where I'm even noticing if their hair looks different today.
I came home and my Sweetie had cooked some veggies for me. We chatted briefly, but he needed to get to bed so we didn't talk for long. That's often how Monday goes.
Malta is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an archipelago. There are over half a million people living there, making it quite densely populated, and pretty much the entire main island is covered in buildings, so it is also a city-state.
Malta's location has"historically given it great strategic importance as a naval base, with a succession of powers having contested and ruled the islands, including the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Knights of St. John, French, and British."
It became a British Colony in 1813, and served as an important naval base. It was still a British base during WWI, and many soldiers were taken there to recover from their wounds.
"Since the island was so far off from the battlefront, it was the perfect medical recovery outpost. The Gallipoli campaign, as well as the Salonika one meant that 136,121 wounded or sick soldiers were treated in Malta. An average of 2,000 wounded soldiers started arriving in Malta from the front every week, while the record for the most patients treated in one day stands at an astonishing 20,994. Malta had, at its peak, 27 hospitals with 334 medical officers, 913 nurses, and 25,000 beds to provide optimum care to those arriving from the front."
https://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2018-11-10/local-news/Malta-in-WW1-The-Nurse-of-the-Mediterranean-in-the-eyes-of-the-ANZACs-6736199119
"During the war Malta played an important role for the Allies; being a British colony, situated close to Sicily and the Axis shipping lanes, Malta was bombarded by the Italian and German air forces. Malta was used by the British to launch attacks on the Italian Navy and had a submarine base. It was also used as a listening post, intercepting German radio messages including Enigma traffic.[125] The bravery of the Maltese people during the second siege of Malta moved King George VI to award the George Cross to Malta on a collective basis on 15 April 1942. Some historians argue that the award caused Britain to incur disproportionate losses in defending Malta."
When Malta gained independence in 1964, for a while it kept the Queen as it's head of state, but in 1974 became a republic. Not long afterwards the British closed up it's naval base, and all lands held by Britain were returned.
Overall human rights are good here; it is very supportive of LBGTQ communities, protects freedom of religion, and so on. Abortion is still completely illegal.
There is no wilderness to speak of, and the islands are mostly low hills covered in buildings.
The country relies on tourism, and is developing it's financial services sector. Traditionally they had limestone quarries, but I don't know how much they currently mine from those. They are working with the European Space Agency as well, though I'm not sure in what capacity. They do grow a lot of grapes, and have a wine industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta
https://youtu.be/Qee_dxMvids?si=l4QbcgiQiSENvFDo
