“Well, here we are after over one year of living in Malta. How has the first year been, you ask? Interesting, I say.” Talmaone looks back on a year of blackened ceilings, pigs on fork-lifts and ocean-swimming horses, and reckons it’s been twelve months well spent.
“Off we went, and in the first week of November we arrived in Malta to our little two-bedroom temporary apartment. Everything was easy, plain sailing – apart from…The Bank Account!” Talmaone and her husband make the move – though not without the odd bureaucratic hiccup after their arrival…
“A car from the hotel picks us up, straight to the hotel and, on our second wind after very little sleep, we have a drink and take a walk down to the seafront. Wow! What interesting buildings, little roads and paths. And a super seafront with promenade, cafés and all sorts of interesting things. We look at each other and say, ‘I could deal with this!'” Talmaone describes how she came to focus on Malta as a possible new place to live…
“Where does the story start? Maybe the beginning should be the reason for wanting to leave one’s country of residence for another. So that’s as good a place to start as any.” Reasons for moving to Malta from the point of view of a British expat living somewhere in the Spanish-speaking tropics…
“We needed to be in Pozzallo to book our ferry tickets to Valletta by 09:00 Monday morning. We also had to find a vet in Pozzallo to get the dogs’ tick and worming treatments done and certify them to allow them into Malta. The treatments have to be given not less than 24 hours and not more than 48 hours before entry. So we had a bit of a timescale here as the ferry in Pozzallo only runs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.” Carol, Barry and the dogs approach journey’s end.
“The last time we drove through Europe we took the scenic route, but as this time we have our dogs with us we have taken the toll roads for speed. Today the toll charges came to €41.30. Bit pricey, but what you lose in cost you do make up in time.” Carol, Barry and the dogs set off from Hertfordshire on the first half of their journey to Gozo.