February 2018 - Week 1

Monday 29th January to Sunday 4th February 2018

Monday morning I collected Sam from the ferry after her trip to Gozo. We stopped off at Mambos on the way home for cappuccini and a catch up. In the afternoon I visited a lawyer to get a couple of copies of our last tax return certified, this time for Lloyds Bank. For dinner I made a delicious fridge soup; garlic, green lentils, peppers, mange tout, bay leaves, chilli, salt, pepper, vegetable stock, onions and celery.

Tuesday we shopped, worked, walked and cooked roast chicken, stuffing, sweet potatoes and sweetcorn for dinner.

Wednesday we had another Spanish lesson. Today it was present continuous and future tenses. Late afternoon I went to see a dermatologist for some freezing and burning. We’ll miss this efficient health service where you can phone up a private hospital, make an appointment to see a specialist either for the same day or within a couple of days and then have your consultation, diagnosis, treatment and results all at the same time, and all (in today’s case) for about £50. For dinner I made a mixed vegetable vindaloo in the slow cooker using onions, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, peppers, courgettes, baby sweetcorn and green beans. It was fantastic served with some crusty bread and butter.

Thursday Sam went to see the Mosta Dome – at last – and then to meet Leslie for lunch. I went for a walk in our continuing excellent weather. After lunch we made some good progress at scanning, packing, sorting out and throwing out now that we have packing boxes to hand. For dinner Sam had hamburgers from the freezer section of our supermarket which she said were okay. I had left over vegetable vindaloo with bread.

Friday we got loads done including more packing up. In the evening we went to Miracles for a couple of drinks then went on to HOS for an Indian meal. It was very poor on this occasion. This will probably be our last visit to HOS in any event but if we had been staying in Malta we would probably have given up on it altogether after tonight’s experience. We started with papadums which were good as always but the pickles etc that came with them were poor. Sam had mixed starters as her main dish; lamb chops (way over cooked), onion bajis (doughy and tasteless) and chickpeas with potatoes (not nice). I had a tandoori mixed grill; in other words, dried up minced lamb kebabs, ridiculously over cooked lamb medallions, dry chicken tikka, and chicken tandoori that was over cooked on the outside but – sin of sins – still bloody against the bone! Needless to say we didn’t eat it and we were given a discount on the night and offered 15% off on our next visit but, nope, we will never go there again. It’s such a shame. In the early days the food was good and reliably so, but it has gone off and tonight it was pretty awful – not to mention dangerous!

Saturday dawned grey, drizzly and humid. By the end of January the reservoirs should be fairy full and there is a saying in Maltese that roughly translates as, “February tops them up.” In other words we should expect some rain in February. It may make little difference though, as the winter has thus far been quite dry and the reservoirs are fairly empty. I braved the drizzle to go to The Chocolate Factory for an average and over-priced cappuccino; I shouldn’t have bothered but I wanted to get some fresh air. In the evening I went for a walk before dinner but it was still spitting so I stopped off in a handy pub. For dinner we had pizzas.

Sunday the warm sunshine was back; it never leaves us for long. We walked over to The Donut Factory for cappuccini then went to the butcher to buy the makings of our dinner. Along the way we bought pastizzi for our lunch. After lunch I did a great power walk, sticking partly to the back streets to avoid the crowds that gather on the promenade on Sundays. For dinner I had a pork chop with Lyonnaise potatoes and Sam had a rib eye steak with chips.