Malta - British Expat Forum

The annual Animal Fest will be held at the wide section of road directly in front of the Selmun Palace on the edge of Mellieha town, 10am, 'til 4.30pm on Sunday, 27th May.

All pets are welcome. There will be Guide dogs; animal displays; falconry; showings of cats, dogs, rabbits, birds etc.

Childrens' pets and animal blessings will take place at 12.15.

There will also be a scouts parade and a variety show by Artemocion though I'm afraid it's not been possible to find out the times of these events.

There is usually a mobile coffee/burger van and various other stalls. Noah's Ark Animal Sanctuary will have a couple of tables and Terry and I shall be manning these from 12noon to 2pm, other folk (mainly Clive and Chris) will be covering the rest of the time.

It is usually a very good, well attended event. Parking will probably be controlled and allowed only up as far as Joe's Bar on the corner, so you park where you can along the road and walk up to the Palace.

There are some great walks in several directions for those bringing their dogs - down the winding track between the many allotments which has some lovely views of the sea and bays, or off to the side leading to above Mistra Bay.

The easiest ways to find the Palace are: either from the dual carriageway (Mellieha by-pass) if coming from the ferry, OR, coming up through the town, at the Bell View hotel roundabout (where there is the Mellieha bus interchange) turn off left following the sign to Selmun Palace - or, if coming from the Xemxija direction, at the top of the very winding hill, on reaching the same roundabout, take 3rd turning off and follow signs.

Hope to see you there,

Sheelagh & Terry, (on behalf of Noah's Ark)

clashes with the car boot sale in Gozo, otherwise would have attended

A bit late for an update I know, but thought you'd like to know that the Noah's Ark (dog sanctuary near Paradise Bay) tables raised 350 euros - very much needed at the moment as their pink (old kodak) charity kiosk in the area by the Police station next to the Church Sanctuary has had to remain closed for several weeks now because of all the very messy and noisy building work going on - and the Dog Sanctuary has no government funding - only voluntary donations and help.

The council is redeveloping the area, having removed the trees that have lined this area for many years and roughly concreted the stretch where they were, it will eventually be paved and have a fountain and benches. The free parking spaces will disappear of course. There doesn't seem to be any shade planned for those resting on the benches. The huge hole for the fountain was excavated in the wrong place so when the Mayor saw it he said it had to filled in and a another hole dug! There have been trenches dug and filled in and dug again. It seems incrdible that a small area like this is taking so long to do.

The tourist "information office" small kiosk (which has yet to be pulled down and the huge tree alongside it dug out) - (and it is next to the dog sanctuary kiosk, which hopefully won't be destroyed in error!) - closed in anticipation of the building works starting much earlier than it did and hasn't opened since despite the main work not starting until the beginning of May so all the tourists have been wanding to the dog sanctuary kiosk asking for information as no-one knows of another tourist information office opening in Mellieha. Everyone walking through to the church, the Church Sanctuary grounds or to walk round to the hotel near there gets covered in chalky dust.

Hopefully it will look nice eventually and encourage people to walk through and spot the kiosk as they do so.

Sheelagh

Malta - it'll be great when its finished

Hope so!