Learning to Sail.....Soon.

On my retirement Gill and I thought that it would be good to find a pass time that we could do together, not something that she does already and not something that I do already, something we could learn from scratch together, without one or the other having any advantage in knowledge.

So is there anyone out there on the Islands of Malta and Gozo that are willing to offer my wife and I a taste of what sailing is all about, nothing big, just a small dinghy perhaps.
You would think here on these small islands surrounded by the beautiful Mediterranean that it would be easy, not so in my experience, I mean there must be people that come here to learn to sail but certainly here on the tiny island of Gozo I can find no one willing to teach us.

I have found the 'Gozo Sailing Club' on the Internet and have left a message on the bulletin board, so far no one has responded . I notice on the website of the Gozo Sailing Club that some racing will be taking place this Sunday at Hondoq, maybe I will go along and introduce myself. I am really surprised that nobody is doing this on a commercial basis, a business opportunity for a budding entrepreneur perhaps.

"As I career towards old age, there are many things which frighten me. All the hair on my head will start to grow out of my nose. My ear lobes will swell up. My bladder will cease to function. I will become even more baffled by new technology". Jeremy Clarkson.

Eric Clapton - The Autobiography

Any one that knows me is left in no doubt that I enjoy music, I am particularly fond of rock and blues. One of the artists to introduce me to what I might call true blues as opposed to the more modern development of electric blues is Eric Clapton.

My sister in law and her husband treated me to Eric Clapton's Autobiography for Christmas and it is not what I might have bought for myself, not because I don't read but because it seems every man and his dog is coming out with biographies of one form or another at the moment, some from people that have not been on the planet for more than five minutes and therefore do not have very much of substance to write about and others badly written or written by ghost writers, this fashion does not encourage one to read autobiographies.

So I have just finished reading Eric Clapton - The Autobiography, in the late 1960s, one of the most prominent pieces of graffiti seen in London and New York was "Clapton is God." Thirty years later, the guitarist and singer continues to hold the initiated enthralled, and a fair share of his present-day fans weren't even born when those words of worship were emblazoned in public. Clapton's meandering and groundbreaking musical career has been punctuated by extreme personal hardship and tragedy. Through the emotional truth of his music, he has sought refuge and release from the suffering of drug and alcohol addiction and personal relationships gone wrong, also the deaths of several loved ones.

Throughout the book, Clapton discloses his relationships with women, his bouts with drugs and alcohol, as well as the death of his son, Conor. Referring to the lowest points of his life, he states “…the only reason that I didn’t commit suicide was that I knew I wouldn’t be able to drink anymore if I was dead.”

His friendship with George Harrison and especially his obsession with Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd, returns again and again throughout the book. However, he barely touches on Harrison’s death, which I found surprising. I also noticed that he doesn’t hand over a great deal of praise to many living musicians; most of those he holds in high regard are dead. However, in all fairness, he doesn’t thoroughly bash those musicians whom he criticizes.

As harrowing as it is fascinating, this Autobiography offers a valiant portrait of an brilliant music legend. Honest and candid, Eric Clapton confides his life story with much the same sincerity that distinguishes his music. If you like Clapton you will certainly enjoy the book.

"Actions have consequences...first rule of life. And the second rule is this - you are the only one responsible for your own actions". Holly Lisle

Two Weeks in Gozo.

It is 2 weeks since we arrived here in Gozo and it has been quite a busy time, within a few days of us arriving here our container full of belongings from the UK arrived here with 150+ boxes. Our house here in Munxar is already partly furnished so we have been trying to find homes for what amounts to the contents of another house, we are almost straight again now.

We have had to arrange telephone and Internet connection, we are going through the rather drawn out task of obtaining a Maltese ID card, whilst the UK population continues to object to the introduction of ID there they have had them here in Malta and Gozo for some time. We have also had time to relax, chill out and do a bit of reading. Gill and I have decided we would like to learn to sail so will be making enquiries this week to see if we can find someone to offer us a few trial lessons, it would be mad to come to a small island like Gozo and not take to the water in some way.

For the time being we are both in the enviable situation of not having to get up at any particular time in the morning and actually having more spare time than I ever remember having, in my working life anyway.

"I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way". Carl Sandburg.

Road Trip London - Gozo.

Day 18 Mirabella Imbaccari, Sicily - Pozzallo Sicily - Gozo.

We left Agriturismo Gigliotto feeling a bit disappointed, this area of Sicily is wonderful and the location of Agriturismo Gigliotto is even more so, unfortunately from an accommodation point of view well lets just say it's a bit rough around the edges, some attention to detail is required.It is around 90 mins drive across country to the Sicily coastal town of Pozzallo, on route we had to stop to fill up with fuel and clean some more bugs from the car to enable us to see out of the window, the pump attendant laughed and commented "do you not get bugs in the UK" surprisingly in English I explained that we do indeed get bugs sticking to the car in the UK but only in the one or two hot months that we get a year in the UK each year and then not in this quantity.
We arrived in Pozzallo, the ferry was well signposted and easy to find, we stopped to check the timetable the ferry would not leave until 9.00pm this evening and we would not be able to book tickets until 7.00pm that evening. The time then was 11.30am so a bit of time to kill, Pozzallo would normally be a busy holiday seaside town but we are very early in the season so it is almost uninhabited with not much in the way of entertainment open for a couple of tourists with 8 hours or so to kill. We quickly found a coffee bar on the seafront and ordered 2 coffee's to think about what we were going to do, we decided on an early lunch, found a restaurant that was open and enjoyed lunch overlooking the sea, that killed a couple of hours, we then spent another hour or so driving along the coast road taking in the view, stopping periodically to check out the beach, found somewhere to park up on the beach and watch the world go by.

At 6.30pm we returned to the ferry ready to book our tickets at 7.00pm, whilst waiting I noticed a motor home with British plates and went over too introduce myself (you don't get many British vehicles this far south normally) it was a Scotsman and his wife also relocating to Gozo, in conversation he explained that he had already been here for 24 hours waiting to board the ferry to Malta. This was my train of thought before we left on this journey, only one ferry a day makes the crossing from Sicily to Malta and back, it is mid April the holiday season has not really got underway so you the demand for the ferry will be low, so it should simply be a matter of turning up purchasing a ticket and driving on. WRONG!!The capacity for the ferry is not that large, it will carry a large number of passengers but not so vehicles.

I Cued at the ticket desk along with others for last minute tickets, the ticket office opened and then it dawned on me from previous experience Italians don't cue, in the free for all that followed I was told that there were no spaces on the ferry I should come back at 8.30pm to wait for a space that may become available if somebody does not show up that has booked, and I would be 4th in that cue, Other wise we would have to wait until Wednesday (this was Monday), I went back to the car to explain to Gill what was happening, oh gosh she exclaimed, (her actual words were a lot stronger than that).We got on the ferry that night, only just, so we were all happy again.We arrived in Malta around midnight and were now faced with the task of finding our way from Valletta harbour to the Gozo ferry at the other end of the island, now you may think they have just found there way from London to Malta so Valleta harbour to Gozo should be a piece of cake, the first thing to understand is all the way across Europe I have had the assistance of TomTom satellite navigation, the maps included with this system covers all of western Europe and even some of eastern Europe but strangely enough not Malta.We arrived in Munxar at 2.30am only to find that I had picked up the wrong keys to the house whilst we were in the UK, the correct keys had been packed and would be on a container with the rest of our belongings and would arrive in Malta in about 1 weeks time.I had to wake he lady that looks after the house whilst we are away to get her keys, she was very understanding.

So Home Sweet Home 2.30 in the morning 21st April 2008.

• Mileage 2635
  Fuel used 80 gallons or 363 litres.
• Fuel cost £508.00
• Toll road fees cost £270.00.