Saturday in the Shops

Life seems to be returning to normal now with Christmas and New Years just a memory. The stormy weather is over and people are out and about doing their regular Saturday chores. We walked the lower Mosta Road looking for a new dish cloth, a pot scrubber and a back-up glue stick for my journal ephemera. Found everything, even some organic peanut butter for me on the delicious local Maltese crusty bread called Ftera.

I found a shop that will sync my iPhone so I can use my Vodafone SIM card and purchased minutes. No time to do it today so I will come back Monday.....Maltese version of Mañana....no hurry for anything:)

The boat owners of the resident harbour boats are out in their punts retrieving buoys and securing tarps......general maintenance after the the wind and waves of the past four days.

What I envisioned and what is the reality here, has hit me somewhat today.....leaving me with a bit of a down feeling. Coming here I wanted to live quietly following and learning about the life of the local Maltese. I said as long as the sun shone I didn't mind how cool it might be. I think the unseasonably cold last few days have been hard for me. When I am cold my body aches. Today we reached the acceptance of there being cooler weather than what we may have expected and but are adjusting with more layers, read 'more scarves', and a little more of the expensive electricity to heat our apartment.

I have learned from our many winters away that you have peaks and valleys during your travels. Today was my valley but already after an afternoon walk to order our next batch of wine and water I feel better. On our way home I stayed outside and sketched our apartment while waiting for our delivery. Apartment blocks are mostly one unit wide, so when you are in an apartment you only have someone above and below you. The next building is stone block separation so you hear nothing. We occasionally hear a chair scraping on the floor from above but other than that it is quiet.

This is a picture of our 'wet bar' lol...wine and water stacked up along our wall. Good Spanish Merlot for $2.15 litre ...can't beat that...water is $.27 cents a litre. Can't quite decide which we drink more of on a daily basis, probably wine, in the true European fashion. It's a good excuse anyway.

Tomorrow is the day we had planned to go back over to Gozo. Weather forecast is for mostly sunny, a high of 17 degrees and winds of up to 72 kph. Storm force 7/8 on the water. Do we or don't we. I guess the worst that can happen is we get seasick and/or stranded on the island. We have talked about it and have decided it will be an exciting excursion however it turns out.

When I start to write my daily report I sometimes get side tracked and that's when I just make a list of observations:).........

This island has no natural resources. It doesn't have enough land to graze cattle or sheep. We have had prime rib from Ireland and Poland. Our butter comes from Ireland. We commented today that we haven't seen any kind of farm implements other than a rototiller. Most of the tiny, rock enclosed fields are hand cultivated and primarily for vegetables. There is always an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables in many little 'corner' stores.There are fruit trees and small vineyards. It is hard to imagine how this tiny island country survives. We spoke to a woman today who was a tourism representative. She was originally from Ontario, her father is Maltese and she told us it was very rare to see people from western Canada here because it is such a long trip. She moved here 17 years ago to raise her children with their Maltese heritage and also because of the quality of life and free education right through university levels.

Where do they get their power? They have no rivers, no dams.....We've been told that electricity is very expensive. We also see huge solar panel arrays on roof tops. It makes sense because of the amount of sunshine here. People have washing machines but no dryers. Laundry hangs from every apartment balcony.

This is an island country of stone that has survived for thousands of years, occupied by several different countries and cultures but still maintains its Maltese identity and language.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy