Opportunity for Trades People in Gozo.

A great opportunity for a trades person in Gozo, I am talking about builders, plumbers, electrician, carpenters etc. I have come here from the UK because I like the people and the slow way of life, and there is no way that I would want to upset the natural balance of things here, the Gozitan's do things their way and that should not change.

Now here is the opportunity, the trades person from any of these trades would obviously need to be competent to carry out the task, as indeed most of them are, to this they would need to add the following -

1. Turn up to carry out the requested job when they say they will.
2. If they can't turn up, call the client, explain and arrange another appointment.
3. Do not disappear half way through the task and arrive again the following day with no explanation to the client.
4. When the task is complete clear up all the debris that the job has created and take it with you.
5. Take any empty boxes and packaging with you.

I have been here for one year now and used many trades people from all of the trades and I have only managed to find one, that can meet all of these requirements, and as you would expect he is a very very busy person, even though he is not the cheapest around. The products he sells are not the cheapest but are very good quality, his rate for the job is not the cheapest (nor the most expensive), he pays attention to detail and he complies to the list above. The result is he has a thriving business and earns a very good living.

If any trades people can match these requirements please let me know and you will be showered with praise and maybe even work.

"Gain a modest reputation for being unreliable and you will never be asked to do a thing". Paul Theroux

Ten ways I have had to Adapt in Gozo as an Expat.

If you move to another country to live, (in my case it was the Maltese Island of Gozo) all the books and articles tell you to make sure you spend as much time as possible in the community you intend to reside in before relocating. This is exactly what we did and we thought we were well prepared for the culture shock that was to follow, well take it from me however well prepared you think you are it will be a bigger shock to the system than you thought.

All that said here is my top ten ways I have had to adapt, as an expat on Gozo compared to busy old London in the UK.

1. I am far more open minded now than I used to be, you quickly learn that because something is done a certain way in the UK, does not mean it is the best way or the only way.
2. Grocery shopping here on Gozo takes place 3 or 4 times a week, this way you get the very freshest local produce. In the UK we used to shop once a week or once every 2 weeks if we could get away with it.
3. The art of patience, I had to learn quickly to adapt from the not a spare minute, rush rush, horn blasting attitude of London life, to the van driver that stops his motor in the street to chat to a mate coming in the other direction while the cars patiently Que up behind until he has finished. (This one applies to Gozo, not so much Malta.)
4. Talking to complete strangers, they just come up for a chat, you have never seen nor met them before, they simply want to pass the time of day.
5. Humour, you have to learn to laugh especially when things go wrong, laughter is good there is a humorous situation to be found even when things get serious.
6. In the UK if you get 2 weeks of non stop clear hot weather you probably love it and revel in it but it is not long before the gloom and misery return. Here in Malta and Gozo around this time we start moving into extreme temperatures and I am talking 35 - 40c + and overnight temperatures in the high 20s with no prospect of rain until September. Such prolonged spells of heat can become oppressive after several months with no relief. The things I have to put up with!
7. Learning a new language, they all speak English here so we are not under any pressure to learn the local language but you miss out on so much if you don't make the effort, we understand no more than a few words and phrases, simply because it is one of the most difficult to learn, being a dialect of Arabic mixed with Italian. It is a long slow road but we are getting there.
8. Courage - going to a new country is not for the “weak at heart”. You can be challenged daily with opposing views, and even isolation and loneliness. Knowing up front that you are courageous for choosing to go abroad can be a powerful reminder if your feeling down. How many of your friends and family would ever consider “up and moving” to another country, not many and lets face it, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.
9. As a gadget and computer geek in the UK I had got used to buying electrical goods at rock bottom prices, not so here, they simply can't shift the volumes of product that is possible in the UK so the mark ups are higher, much higher sometimes. Example a fridge freezer American style, here €1600.00 same model in the UK £850.00. weak sterling at the moment make matters a lot worse than they otherwise would be.
10. Any physical work that needs to be done around the house like cleaning or repairs have to be completed by 11.00am in the summer months, after this time it is just too hot. So early starts to the day are a must.
    

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative. H. G. Wells.

Cats or Kittens.

A very dear Maltese friend of ours (actually that should be Gozitan, she would be outraged that I have labeled her Maltese) well her Persian cat has just had kittens. You know where this story is going don't you. We went to her house recently to see the kittens, of course we already have a 7 month old Persian called Chilly, so we don't need two cats again do we?

To cut a very long story short and after much discussion we were given the first pick of the kittens and..... Meet Misty, she is just 7 weeks old, and will stand in the palm of my hand at the moment, she must think that I am filthy as she seems to think I need grooming all the time.
We thought that Chilly still being very young would not mind too much us bringing a kitten into the house, well how wrong was I he was not amused at all and when he is not hissing at her he is seriously grumpy. Twenty four hours later he is a little less hostile, I think he is slowly coming around.


Cats regard people as warm blooded furniture. Jacquelyn Mitchard.

Thank You To The Government of Malta, From The People Of The UK.

The worldwide credit crunch, as it has been named by the media has been brought about by the greed of the banks of some of the worlds richest economies. The pressure laid on managers to obtain ever bigger bonuses meant taking bigger and bigger risks to maintain those profits.
As we all know the deck of cards collapsed and one of victims have been the UK car industry.

The UK car economy has gradually been built up over the last century with the encouragement and assistance of the British government to turn it into the economy building machine it is today. This time last year the UK car industry was responsible for more than 2% of GDP (gross domestic product) that's 2% of one of the richest nations on the planet this is not as I am sure you will agree a small money earner for the economy. Today the UK car industry finds itself fighting for survival, again working together with the Brittish Government it is very slowly turning around.

In January of this year the Maltese government introduced it's revised car registration tax, I won't bore you with the details but it turns out that this tax has given to the Maltese what appear to be the most expensive cars in Europe. I am talking about up to 80% more expensive than the same car can be purchased for in the UK. The people of Malta are not at all stupid so they are travelling to the UK to buy cars in droves and either driving them or having them shipped here to Malta, result is a bargain for the Maltese, even with the high tax imposed on the vehicles when they are registered here in Malta they are still much cheaper.

As for the UK car industry, well they are just lapping up those Euros being brought to the UK from Malta, we are not talking small sums, we are talking may be millions of Euros each month that are flowing out of Malta and into the UK playing it's small part in assisting the British economy. You would think that they might want to encourage there own car industry to grow and keep the euros in Malta, help the industry grow and increase the GDP of Malta, instead the government pursues short term tax gains through the registration tax whilst at the same time destroying the Maltese car trade, but they are the government, they know what they are doing, don't they?

A big thank you to Malta and it's forward thinking government for your Euros, the UK is very grateful for the small part you are playing in helping the UK economy in it's time of need.

I don't make jokes, I just watch the government and report the facts. Will Rogers.

Wines of Malta and Gozo.

Thank you all for your encouragement with the new wine blog (you know who you are).
Just to let you know it is now up and running, with a few bugs, but we will hopefully iron those out over the coming weeks. You can find it at Wines of Malta and Gozo .
This blog 'in search of nirvana' will continue while I still get people happy to read it, close to 600 a month now.

Meanwhile subscribe to my monthly newsletter on the new wine blog.


'The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand'. Frank Herbert.

Just Imagine..

Just imagine an evening tasting wine where the atmosphere is friendly, relaxed, informal. Where the measures being served from each of the wines being shown, are more than just a tasting measure, to give you the best opportunity to relish each glass, and if you were not sure, you could go back and try another glass. And all this served with high quality food from Patrick and his crew.

This was what I had to suffer last night at the award wining restaurant It-Tmun here in Gozo. The show case wines available to try were from the ozzy wine maker Peter Lehmann's Barossa range presented by Julia Schregel, export manager for the Hess Group, also on hand to answer questions were Mr Abraham of Abrahams Supplies Ltd and Marco Vella import export manager for Attard & Co.

We were greeted on arrival by Patrick and were served an aperitif of very Italian pink Prosecco, most welcome considering the very hot day we had just endured. Prosecco is a fresh light, simply made sparkling wine that is not at all like champagne (other than the bubbles) nor does it try to be champagne, and is made from the prosecco grape, the producer I can not remember. Normally at these events I take a pen and paper and take notes, which I failed to do last night that is why I am sat here at 6.00am in the morning writing just in case my ageing brain forgets where I had been last night, let alone remember what I tasted.

• The first of the Lehmann wines was the Chardonnay, light and fresh not over full as some Ozzy chardonnays can be, with some oak, once again not over oaked as some Aussie chardonnay can be. If you like Chardonnay but are fed up with the fat over oaked, over alcoholic style this would be a good choice.

• Next to try, the Riesling this grape better perhaps known in Germany has found a new home here in South Australia, made to drink young, hence screw cap closure (Maltese winemakers note) with hints of peach and citrus fruit, clean and refreshing, went very well with the Paella that was being served freshly cooked at the table by Patrick's brother.

• Then we had Barossa's own adopted grape of Shiraz, deep red with lots of red fruit favours and enough tannin to balance nicely with the 14.5% alcohol . The Shiraz paired very well with the cheese selection that was on offer.

• A wine called Clancy's (not sure where the name came from) a blend of Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot a big wine that is straining at leash to get out but has been tamed by the addition of Merlot, noticeable tannins. This is certainly a different wine to the usual ozzy reds, so for something a little different try it.

• To finish the evening we were served a port style wine called 'The King' made from a blend of Shiraz and Touriga Nacional (the traditional port grape) and I thought that the quality was very good indeed, and would be happy to drink it in place of a traditional vintage port, I am sure there are a few purists out there that might cringe at this statement.

Patrick tells me that he had an enjoyable evening, I know I did, I also added further to my wine knowledge. Note to self 'when wine tasting remember to take notebook and pen'.

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory. Albert Schweitzer.

Yet Another Wine Blog.

This blog In Search of Nirvana is all about my move from the UK as an expat to the sunny Maltese Island of Gozo. I have enjoyed writing it very much, I sometimes have a problem trying to think of something worthwhile to write about. I normally manage one or two posts a week. The blog has a small following and I get a respectable 500 hits each month now which considering I make very little attempt to drive people to the blog is quite reasonable. Now the question is could I justify starting a second blog.

I am a bit of a wine geek as anyone who knows me will tell you, and I consider myself fairly knowledgeable on the wine front when it comes to the famous wine regions of the world, France, Italy, Australia etc. A region not much talked about until recently, are the wines of Malta and Gozo and whilst there are hundreds of blogs out there on the subject of wine in the various regions, I have not found any that cover Malta and Gozo (I stand to be corrected if anyone knows any different), so I thought I might start one now. This would enable me to enhance my knowledge on the subject of Maltese wine and at the same time help those that may have a desire to learn a bit more about Malta as a wine region.

I would like to keep the content interesting and without jargon, or where jargon is required it will be explained. I would like to be able to play my part in promoting the wines of Malta both inside and outside the borders of these islands and remain as impartial as possible. I am thinking interviews with wine makers and highlighting the many restaurants that take the serving of wine as seriously as the serving of their food. I would like to involve people at all levels in wine tastings pitching local wines against other regions of the world in blind tastings.

What do you think, is there room for another wine blog, if so what would you like to know, what would be of interest to you. Take a few minutes to let me know either by email or via comments on this blog.



"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put thngs in it" Terry Pratchett.