It's been a while.

'Time for a change' my wife and I agreed, let me give you a quick update.

Around 10 years ago we bought an un-restored farmhouse on Gozo, had it fully restored by a local builder and added a swimming pool.

Following my retirement from the London Fire Brigade 5 years later, we moved lock stock and barrel to the beautiful Island of Gozo, having sold up in the Uk.

The following 5 years proved to be some of the most stressful years of our moderately long life for a whole variety of reasons that I won't bore you with here. So it is with great regret that we have now sold the farmhouse and left the Island.

When our friends in Malta and Gozo heard of our plans to move they all thought we were off back to blighty, but no not the case. Prior to our Gozo move, France was a consideration (hind site is a wonderful thing).

One of Life's Rare Opportunities.

Set in the quite village of Munxar on the tiny island of Gozo just a few minutes from the sea, this character rich farmhouse will impress.

Restored Gozo Farmhouse

Priced at €299,000 for this 3 bedroom converted farmhouse with swimming pool.

Each post covers in detail a different room or area of the house, over time building a full and complete description. I hope you find the blog interesting and please feel free to leave any feedback you wish. I will reply to all communications as promptly as I possibly can.

"Use your imagination not to scare yourself to death but to inspire yourself to life. "

Adele Brookman

The First Toastmasters Club of Malta.

The First Toastmasters Club of Malta is now underway, we have now had three meetings our membership is growing ever greater with each meeting and we have had inquiries from more than 100 people.
My fears when I created this monster was that there may not be enough interest and that trying to set it up would be a bit of a long shot, clearly I was wrong.
Our meeting place to date has been the boardroom of Sara Grech Real Estate Agents one of the largest property agents on the Maltese Islands, Sara is one of our most active members and we take advantage of her hospitality for no charge whatsoever, thank you Sara.

Our membership has now got to the stage where we are going to require a larger meeting room since we appear to have outgrown this one in only three months, so we are now in the process of looking for an alternative venue.

Let's tell you a bit more about Toastmasters,

• A Toastmasters meeting is a learn-by-doing workshop in which participants hone their speaking and leadership skills in a friendly atmosphere. A typical group has 20 to 40 members Malta Toastmasters meet monthly to practice public speaking techniques. The average meeting lasts one hour.

• Members learn communication skills by working in the Competent Communication manual, a series of 10 self-paced speaking assignments designed to instill a basic foundation in public speaking. Participants learn skills related to use of humor, gestures, eye contact, speech organization and overall delivery. When finished with this manual, members can choose from 15 advanced manuals to learn skills related to specific interests.

• Members also learn leadership skills by taking on various meeting roles and serving as officers at the club and by working in the Competent Leadership manual and the High Performance Leadership program. In our learn-by-doing approach, we don't lecture our members about leadership skills; we give them responsibilities and ask them to lead.

• There is no instructor in a Toastmasters meeting. Instead, members evaluate one another’s presentations. This feedback process is a key part of the program’s success. Meeting participants also give impromptu talks on assigned topics, conduct meetings, serve as officers in various leadership roles and learn rules related to timing, grammar and parliamentary procedure.

If you would like to join us or just come to a meeting to see how things work you can contact me as the Club President through this blog or you will find our Toastmasters Group page at LinkedIn and you can contact the club this way.

"Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care." William Safire.