I am honestly getting used to living in the quieter part of Sliema, probably the last place I would have thought about – even going back just a few months – for what would hopefully one day be the third-age phase of my life. For someone born and bred in the Cottonera area and who had spent all his married life in boring but central Birkirkara, it was indeed a major decision to take.

It is certainly not a question of class. Nor has it got to do simply with scenic splendour, of which there is ample. But there is a certain urban tranquillity here that is as surprising as it is pleasing. There is also the joy of anonymous living, not in the David and Victoria Beckham sense of course, but in the fact that down-to-earth attitudes and live-and-let-live concepts seem to permeate everyday life here in Sliema; elsewhere it is much more likely that people soon get to know if you don’t go to church regularly, you buy “this” or “that” newspaper and if you smoke or drink.

However happy the translocation though, I cannot say that I tiptoe daily across any tulips on the pavement. There is no doubt that Sliema is an animal-loving zone. I do not know how many turds it takes to fill the average pavement, but there is always a good platter of them at every other corner of the block.

I remember that way back a new law was introduced which specifically insisted dog owners taking their pets on their daily “walkies” had to carry with them the means to remove any unwanted souvenirs they left. There was even a young Minister Austin Gatt warning people that action would be taken to rid the village and city pavements of animal faeces.

But the anti-animal litter campaign seems to have fizzled out since then. Today, as I stride along the Sliema pavements in the company of cosmopolitan joggers, fast-walking fellow-middle-agers and stone-faced dog-handlers, every single turd I come across reminds me of him, the minister that is. It has nothing to do with skin colour, because they – the turds – come in a rainbow compilation, but obviously more with those bygone declarations on the then awfully important national issue of animal excrement on the pavement, with particular reference to Sliema.

When it comes to animals I doubt if, as a nation, we qualify for even the most basic of recognitions. I would have expected a much bigger outcry against the cruel and sadistic way in which those three unfortunate dogs were killed in Xewkija, Gozo. Even the very publication of the three poor animals hanging from steel wires wound around their throats I found horrid and completely distasteful. As distasteful, I dare say, as the hanging of Saddam Hussein, though the comparison may be a trifle unfair to the dogs, which were far more innocent than the late, unlamented dictator.

There is still a lot of concern over animal welfare in Malta, and rightly so. The shameful Xewkija killers might have wanted to send a macabre message to the dogs’ owner, as has been claimed in the media by various animal lovers and their various organisations, but to do so in this manner is a reflection of one’s stupidity and utter disrespect for life, both human and animal.

Animals are, after all, such agreeable friends. They ask no questions and they make no criticisms.

I read somewhere that Man is actually the only animal that laughs, but when you look at some people, it is hard to understand how the animals keep from laughing. Winston Churchill, whose jowly image is so often compared with that of the traditional British bulldog, is quoted to have once said: “Odd things, animals. All dogs look up to you. All cats look down to you. Only a pig looks at you as an equal.” There is a message somewhere there.

It is good to be among people who love cats and dogs. Judging by the amount of leftovers, dogs, like Nationalists and ex-Nationalists, seem to be in a majority here. You cannot blame them. A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself.

As for cats, I can vouch for Pippin, our pet. It is not easy to understand it, but you know it loves you. Very often I don’t know what the cat had eaten. Usually, I know exactly what Pippin has eaten. Not only have I fed it to the cat, at the cat’s keen insistence, but the cat has thrown it up on the rug and someone has tracked it all the way over on the other rug.

I really don’t know why cats are such habitual vomiters. They don’t seem to enjoy it, judging by the sounds they make while doing it. It seems to be in their nature. A dog will bark. A cat will vomit. I don’t think any of this reminds one of any minister or some ministerial declaration, thank goodness. It would have been embarrassing to elaborate. Not in an election year.