In Search of Nirvana 2008 in Review.... Continued.

• July. This month right through to the end of the year brings a stream of friends and family to see us, and they are welcome, I love showing off Gozo at every opportunity. This month would see some serious unrest amongst the taxi drivers in Malta as widespread industrial action takes place, leaving tourists stranded at Malta International Airport, the work force here have quite strong union links and strikes are not unusual.
• August. The heat really starts to bite at this time of year, the green landscape of the winter and spring months has now been completely replaced by the parched, baked and mainly empty farmers fields, 40+ degrees is not unusual and may only drop as low as 30 degrees in the evening. A project that I had started a couple of months ago involving what would have been providing perhaps the greenest B&B accommodation on the Maltese Islands, has fallen through, after weeks of hard graft involving meetings, emails and of course money spent.
• September. All the years that we have been coming to Gozo and we have not really looked very much at Malta, so we took what would become one of our first of many trips to Valletta, Malta's capital, a beautiful place oozing character and history.
• October. This was the start of what journalists now call in Europe "the credit crunch" Originally coming from the UK we are of course at the mercy of the exchange rates, whilst the press decided that the UK economy was doomed and the European economy was not looking so bad the pound against the euro plummeted, causing much anxiety on our part.
• November. This month we returned to the UK, first trip back to the since we left in April, first port of call was one of our favorite curry houses, (you can get curry here in Gozo but it just is not the same), I had a few days work and it also gave us the opportunity to catch up with family and friends, at the end of our 10 day trip we could not wait to return to our home, Gozo. Also a sad time as we lost my father following a long illness.
  
• December. This month's highlight would be Christmas and not our first Christmas here, we came 2 years ago for Christmas so things done the Maltese way was not new to us. The other highlight would be Chilly the cat. Nine months we have been here now and the time has just flown by.

'If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside'. Robert X Cringley.