September 2016 - Week 5

Monday 26th September to Sunday 2nd October 2016

Monday we went for a walk first thing but got rained on! Isn’t that great; finally it’s cool enough to go for a walk but the rain picked on us. After lunch we went to Pama and Scotts. Pama has better fruit and veg; Scotts has better meat and poultry. For dinner Sam had sushi; I had roasted chicken with homemade baked beans.

Tuesday I went to Homemate and its adjacent sister store The Atrium. For Homemate think B&Q. For The Atrium, think upmarket department store incorporating Habitat. I enjoy looking around these stores occasionally, especially their kitchen departments. They always seem to have loads of everything I don’t want and little of what I do but sometimes I see things that fire my imagination.

I drove on to the San Anton Gardens in Attard. I strolled around them for a little while, sharing them with a straggle of tourists, mostly 70+ Brits. The gardens are always peaceful though. They are full of mature and diverse trees although this time of year there are few flowering shrubs and plants, so there is not much colour to be seen. Indeed, most splashes of colour come from the peacocks that always seem happy to strut their stuff.

I drove on further, to The Apple’s Eye at Golden Bay where I sat on their shaded terrace, sipping a cappuccino and reading my Kindle. This week it is Lord of the Flies; I haven’t read that for decades.

For dinner we had left over chicken with (for me) homemade baked beans and (for Sam) roasted sweet potatoes. After dinner we sat on the terrace and watched the lightening flashing over Mellieha and Gozo. And as we did so we realised something; today was the first day since the beginning of summer that we have not had the air conditioning on. Now there is a sign of just how much things are cooling down.

Wednesday was wet most of the day so, apart from Sam taking a quick walk first thing, we didn’t venture out. Very unusual! For dinner I made a Mexican Puy lentil chilli. It’s the ultimate vegan comfort food and I defy even the most frevid carnivore not to love it!

Thursday we went to Mambo at Armier Bay for brunch – cappuccini and bruschette. Sam had planned to swim but there was a heavy swell. That meant we had the place almost to ourselves though. Several large container ships were sheltering off the east coast. For dinner I made a lasagne using left over Puy lentil chilli and it was fantastic. I did a long five kilometres walk after dinner.

Friday Sam went for a three hour hair do and I did a bit of shopping locally; apart from that we stayed in. In the evening we went to Miracles for drinks, then on to Acqua Marina for dinner. Absolutely brill, again. Mixed Sicilian starters for us to share followed by pasta with an amatriciana sauce for me; frito misto for Sam. We also received free bruschette and limoncello sorbets. And the wine was brill, white and red by the glass but 10 times the quality of most other restaurants’ house wines. And the service was also brill; friendly and welcoming like we are part of the family. After we got home we sat outside on the terrace for ages, shooting the breeze and enjoying the perfect evening temperature we are blessed with at the moment.

Saturday we drove over to Mellieha for a change. We wandered around, checked out a couple of shops and generally soaked up the Mellieha ambience. It is a good-feel kind of a place with just about everything you could want, bar a decent supermarket. Anyway we stopped at Ta Puzzu where Sam had an English breakfast and I had waffles, bacon and maple syrup, all washed down with very good cappuccini. Sam loved eating black pudding for a change.

For dinner we had left over Mexican Puy lentil lasagne.

I went for a walk after dinner but my bladder had other ideas and I was forced into a bar just starting karaoke. I’m of an age and class and culture and civilisation where you cannot use a bar’s loo without having a drink, so I ended up with an unplanned Drambuie. Sometimes you just have to accept the knocks that life deals you.

I’d only been in the bar a few moments when I realised how extraordinarily fat everyone was. A lady leapt on stage to get the karaoke night going. If you look up the word rotund in the Oxford English Dictionary you will find this woman’s name. She was shaped like and oversized beer barrel; indeed, she looked like she had been pumped up by a bicycle pump to the point of no return. She was wearing some sort of soft white dress and looked for all the world like a giant toilet roll with a small fat head and pumped up feet. Her Alison Moyet tribute wasn’t half bad though.

Next we had a woman with a bottom bigger than a mini clubman and, to make things worse, she was no Alison Moyet. And then I noticed that the men all looked like malformed bouncers with thick necks, flabby arms and bellies that can occupy two rooms at once. I felt positively skinny.

But I’m leaving the best till last. Suddenly the landlady (?) arrived. She was like three women fused into one. I’ve heard of people described as being as wide as they are high which is just plain silly but this woman was so wide her arms hung from her sides at 45 degree angles. She was like something out of a sci-fi movie. She is the sort of woman Louis Theroux would make a documentary about, demolishing walls to get her out of a building.

But here’s the thing. She brought with her Expat Tapas. Yes, the dreaded Expat Tapas, snacks served by Brits the world over with unabashed Coronation Street sophistication. First, oven chips on wooden cocktail sticks served on bright blue plastic plates. And they were cold and soggy. Then, ham sandwiches made with not-quite-fresh white sliced bread. It’s enough to make you wish you were German. It’s certainly enough to remind me why Sam and I don’t go to karaoke bars on Saturday nights.

Sunday we stayed in as usual, except for a dash to the corner shop to buy fresh milk. For dinner we cooked fish; a baked sea bream with courgettes for Sam and pan fried spiced salmon with rice pilaf for me.