Carnival!

Now that New Year's and Valentine's Day are over, the next milestone of the year's passing is carnival. This morning I dug out old photos; you know, those real ones that you stick into an album, which you can browse even in times of power cuts. This one (more exactly, it's 2 pics merged into one) is of my first carnival in Gozo in May 1984. For the first night of the carnival weekend, George had dressed up as a woman (pity my skirt he's wearing doesn't show!) and I tried to portray the image of a tough male, not quite successfully as those curls didn't want to stay under that cap!

In those days carnival was celebrated in May because the weather had been considered more accommodating; celebrations were put back to their rightful place before Easter by the Nationalist Party, once they took over government from Labour.

I must admit, the weather was rather more pleasant in May; I hope temperatures will not drop too steep at the end of next week. In the last couple of years we didn't bother to go to Nadur because of the cold weather. Nadur is the main hub of the carnival action! The "spontaneous carnival", which is scattered throughout its streets, has become pretty famous. There are no rules as to what you have to wear; you don't even have to dress up. But it truly is a stage of the weird and wonderful, many revellers transforming themselves with amazing imagination, often leaving you to guess without success who is behind the mascerade.

This photo was taken in Nadur; we spent quite some time in the company of the masked guy - he only communicated by means of gestures and didn't utter a single word. In fact, we never got to know who he actually was!

In all these years - my goodness, it's twenty-two of them!! - the local carnival traditions have remained the same. I am looking forward to the next crazy weekend and hope the weather won't let us down!