Jackie Britton Blog: Malta 30th September

So here we are – back in Malta……and it’s great to be back. It was thankfully hot when Marisa, our friend in Malta, picked us up from the airport with her partner Josef around 2pm. We went straight to Josef’s house for glass of wine and some Ftira bread (which is basically Maltese bread spread with Kunserva, a tomato paste, served with Gozo cheese. It’s delicious with tuna, olives, capers, anchovies and slices of potato. A simple dish but very tasty…….so this speck of a rock is big enough to have culinary specialities and Ftira is principle among them and if served with a Cisk beer ….all the better!

Ftira can look like a pizza when ordered on the Island of Gozo …both are delicious and a good healthy snack.

We got back to our little villa, unpacked and it was as though we hadn’t been gone! (OK…….it’s only 2 months but we missed it!). The skies get a bit cloudy, albeit white fluffy ones, and it gets dark by 7pm now….but hey, who cares. In October they do have the possibility of rain and the next day at 3am in the night the thunderstorm came. Loud thunder and sheet lightning that lit the whole sky- it was quite a spectacle and great to watch…….obviously with the noise, I was woke up with the heavy rain beating on the ceramic tiles in the courtyard. I was ‘wired up’ (I love a thunderstorm especially in the night) and I wanted a cup of tea! Another thunderstorm came the next day too around 9pm in the evening (thankfully we had a lovely sunny day). It was a substantial amount of rain for the farmers as they really need it on this small island. Spain and Italy are suffering too from lack of rain but the trouble is the ground is hard and when it rains heavily….the ground can’t absorb the amount of water and you get massive flooding and destruction!

On Saturday night we all went out, John & I, Marisa and her daughter and boyfriend to watch Andrea and her band play in a bar in Sliema. The band members were all here for the sax player’s wedding the next day and they thought a gig would be a nice welcome for their 40 guests (who hadn’t seen the band play, let alone the groom playing his saxaphone). Guests arrived from the UK but mainly from South Africa as it’s the birthplace of the bride). We had a good evening jigging about to the music and free food and drinks from the management (who were big fans of Andrea)…so it was even better! Sunday we got over our late night and went for a walk, we decided to chance the pending thunderstorm (the weather reports predicted a final one today) and pop into see some friends at their beach house and as we got outside the sea went black and a terrific storm hit us ferociously. It was great to have such a clear view of the storm out at sea and we waited for it to pass with great company and a beer aswell! It was still heavy rain when we decided to go, so our friend gave us a lift back to the villa. It got sunny again after a couple of hours as in Malta weather passes quickly.

John and I are swimming every day and trying to increase the lengths on a daily basis. We are so lucky to have this facility and are thankful every day. Pools take a lot of looking after with adding chlorine and cleaning the debris from the bottom of the pool and John helps Marisa by getting all the dead mosquito’s out ….saying “that’s another one who hasn’t got me”! They do love John and bite him like mad even though we have nets up at the windows and shut the door quickly when we are in and out from the pool area…..they don’t like me (thankfully)! We are lucky in Malta that those pesky insects who feed on human blood don’t carry the parasite that causes malaria. On the whole mosquito’s from Europe are not harmful apart from people like John whose blood they love!! Gross.

On Tuesday, my daughter’s husband’s parents arrived from Milan, Italy. Nina and Lino are staying one week and we took them out a few times and went for walks in the lovely sunshine. We have a car between us for 2 weeks to travel further afield. We had a great week with lots of lovely pasta dishes for lunch and dinner and I made the puddings! It was funny trying to get Nina to say ‘pudding’ and ‘broom’ (when she wanted to sweep up)…we laughed so much. The conversations got better throughout the week with John and I learning lots of Italian and with the help of the iPhone translation app….we chatted and chatted. (You speak into the phone and the translation is typed out and spoken in a very posh accent, some of the translation is hilarious). When talking about the flies around the dinner table, Nina spoke into her phone about the flies and it translated “the flies are big bother” and Lino’s interpretation was “they are the horns of the devil! We had a good laugh and lots of fun getting to know them better. You can visibly see someone and get there personality from their eyes and smiling face but when someone speaks another language it is very difficult to “get them” and dig deep. They are a special couple ……Nina being sweet and kind and ‘on the ball’ and Lino “quite a character” with charm, eccentricity and originality. Italians are so different from the Spanish, who are bound up by late nights of drinking and talking over beers and tapas…..but Italians have an international reputation for spontaneity and warmth – although not encounters with strangers. Small talk is formal with a fulfilment of an obligation, rather than a form of entertainment….. and when it’s time to eat….the conversation is always about food. They love it and so do I. We had the ‘last supper’ on Monday night where I cooked a favourite of mine (Fish Pie) and a good evening was had by all. Lino used to wash up after dinner every night and jokingly said “I have never done so much washing up!” and my reply was “I have never made so many puddings (Dolce)”….we laughed and hugged and felt sad it was coming to an end. Stefano and Andrea were also with us…..Andrea had not only come to Malta for a friend’s wedding but an operation. She had become ill whilst over here in June and was “in their system” so decided to return to have the operation in Malta through EHIC regulations. An operation, I might say, she has been waiting for in the UK for years!

Lino, Nina and John

We took Nina and Lino to Popeye village

Sunset at Popeye village

Walk by Mellieha coastline

Nina and Lino at Popeye village

Information about healthcare in Malta:
Malta was ranked 5th in the world, for its health services standard, by the World Health Organization (WHO)2014 and it’s health care system closely resembles the British system, its former occupier (so it begs the question… what went wrong with the UK’s health system). Malta has excellent health care services with a modern infrastructure and modern equipment and well supported by a regional network of health centres.

All went well and we can confirm that the care was excellent and she came home from hospital in enough time to spend a few days with her in-laws (albeit in bed or a sunbed in the shade), so that was nice. It will be a few weeks to entirely get better and for her to fly home….we are anticipating that she will return with us early in November. The villa seems quiet now without the chatter of Nina and Lino (although right at this moment, the neighbour is cultivating his Olive Grove and Marisa is having some drilling work done in her house…..so quiet – it isn’t!) HA! So, apart from being exhausted changing into my nurse’s uniform, chef’s gear (that includes arranging a balanced diet menu and working out what wine to choose, swimming costume (that includes the putting on suncream and interspersing sunglasses with reading glasses………life is bloody good! I cooked a cake for Marisa’s daughter’s (Pam) for her birthday – good ‘ol Mary Berry recipes. I have made at least 7 of her pudding s/cakes since being here and every one of them turned out really nice. When home in UK- I think I will miss the beautiful evenings the most, where the temperatures are still around 22degrees. The days seem long when you can prolong them and sit outside to eat and chat and although it is getting dark now around 6.30pm and apart from the mosquito’s biting – (not me but John) – it is a nice part of the world to be in.

Andrea joining us at the 'Last Supper'

Changing the subject, Malta’s international airport is implementing the necessary precautions in the eventuality that a passenger showing suspicious symptoms of the Ebola, is identified at the terminal. Although Malta does not have any direct traffic from affected countries, the Airport is in talks with Port Health Services to assure that any training needs, emergency procedures and required resources are in place. The news stated that EU health ministers met in Brussels to discuss the introduction of entry screening but experts are divided on the usefulness of it…..given the difficulty of determining whether an early symptom-like fever is due to Ebola or any other numerous ailments. Ebola has an incubation period of up to 21 days between infection and symptoms and the likelihood of someone getting sick between leaving Africa and arriving in Europe is relatively small. We will see what happens in the UK….wake up government before it’s too late….it is all quite worrying.

I had some good news from home…. my granddaughter Ruby passed her 11plus and although I do not agree with the testing of children this age ……..I am pleased for her that she achieved this herself, and of course, with the help from her parents….(well done Stef & Pri). Now they have umpteen schools to look at to choose the appropriate one for her! Will it be an all-girls school or mixed, will it be a Grammar school (if she can get a place) or an Academy (Academies are publicly funded independent schools that don’t have to follow the national curriculum and can set their own term times. They do still, however, have to follow the same rules on admissions, special educational needs and exclusions as other state schools). It can be a nightmare as Ruby may choose one school and her mum and dad another ,although she is sensible and I know will choose the right one . Alas, I remember it well!

We arrived on the 30^th September and it is the 18^th October today so only a few weeks left to have some fun before we go back to the winter in the UK……give me sun any day!