Diverse Ramblings

Voiceover

The other day I was in Valletta, getting something to eat before heading off for a rehearsal.

I was standing at the counter, waiting for my food to be ready, when the lady at the counter nodded to someone standing right behind me that she was ready to take his order.

He began to tell her what he wanted, and I realised the voice flowing over my shoulder was somehow familiar. It was mellifluous but strangely malevolent. Although all this man was doing was ordering food, he was rolling the words around his mouth as though he very much enjoyed the act of speaking them.

The lady behind the counter was grinning, it was clear she recognised the man.

I turned slightly and glanced unobtrusively out of the corner of my eye - it was John Suda.

I missed that extra hour of sleep. Noooooo.

I just dragged my sorry carcass to the PC to finish preparing for this morning's music in church (lyrics for the singers, chords for the musicians, powerpoint for the congregation). I sat down and saw that the PC clock said it was 7:30am, when I knew I had set my alarm for 8:00am. Eh? Then I realised - it must be the time change today. And I could have stayed in bed for an extra hour! I contemplated going back to bed, but I've just made my coffee so I won't. *sigh*. Maybe I'll go to bed earlier tonight instead, and next year I'll pay more attention.

If you need a warden, avoid needing an ambulance.

You know how sometimes you're observing a situation and thinking to yourself, I can't BELIEVE that those people are being so STUPID!? I had one of those the other day.

I was in Marsa, waiting for a bus, waiting and waiting as usual.

The tedium was unrelieved but for the constant flow of traffic in the four-lane road until there was a fender bender several metres away from the bus-stop. It was actually a bit more than a fender bender because the car behind had quite a lot of damage to its bonnet, but no-one looked hurt or even in shock.

The people in the rear vehicle stayed inside their car, and I wanted to go and tell them to get out of their car and wait on the side of the road, because staying inside a crashed car in the middle of the road is a bad idea because you're quite likely to get hit from behind yourself, and possibly hurt. But I thought to myself, they're adults and I can't just go sticking my nose in. I guess they didn't have an accident kit with them because no-one got out to set up a warning triangle upstream of the cars.

The people in the front vehicle did get out, and they were standing around the sides of their car as though having been in a crash gave them miraculous protection against the other three lanes of traffic whizzing by literally inches away from them. I mean, honestly. But again, who am I to go around telling people what to do?

But then, they went and stood in between the two cars. Yes, I understand that it's the most exciting place to stand because that's where all the damage and drama is, but it's also the most dangerous place to stand.

Mike was in a fender-bender a few months ago, and he and the other guy pulled over to the side of the road (not in the middle of a four-lane road during rush hour) and still they got hit from behind. A third car had spun out of control (it was raining) and hit the back of the rear vehicle - while Mike and the other driver were standing in between the cars. Both men were thrown some distance, both had to be taken to casualty. Mike got away with a nasty cut on his face and a possible hairline fracture of the elbow, but the other guy ended up with a permanent disability.

So I couldn't, I just couldn't stand there and watch these people stand between the cars. I don't know them from Adam, and I'm not responsible for their apparent complete disregard of personal safety, but I really felt I should warn them.

So I went over and called across to them that my husband had been hurt while doing the same thing they were doing (in as nice a way as possible). One of them looked like he was going to brush off my advice as typical well-meaning busybody advice, but then he sort of smiled and nodded, and they got back into their vehicle.

I spent the next ten minutes amusing myself, along with the rest of my fellow bus passengers, by watching the flow of traffic around the crash site, which was of course compounded when the Number 13 bus pulled up at the bus stop, because it always takes ages to board all the passengers and we ended up with two blocked lanes instead of one. It's amazing how many drivers seemed oblivious to the hazard lights on the rear vehicle and still drifted all the way up to it and sat there waiting until they'd finally realise that there was no point in waiting for the crashed vehicles to move.

Then my bus came, so I don't know if those cars ever did get rear-ended by a third one, but hey, maybe someone learned something for a future incident.

I remember the seatbelt safety campaign (quddiem perikoluz, post it-tfal huwa wara, hiq!) and I think we need more campaigns like it for public safety - what to do and not do in case of a road accident, child safety (e.g. stranger danger), and the pros and cons of consumer debt.

And that's my public service announcement for the day.

Eat thy bread with joy

I am forging on in my quest to sit my Home Economics A-Level in May.

I am studying Child Development during my lunchbreaks (just got up to 'reproduction', now know more detail about male and female bits than I ever wanted to know, hope the description of childbirth isn't going to be too graphic), and, although I don't technically have to cook, I'm teaching myself off the internet.

I ventured into cookies, and then cupcakes a few weeks ago, but haven't blogged that yet.

I then decided to try my hand at bread, inspired by the 'Bread' section of the cookbook my mother lent my husband (The Naked Chef, by Jamie Oliver). In case you were wondering, Jamie Oliver doesn't actually get his kit off for the book, but he does strip down recipes to their basic ingredients, hence 'Naked'.

As with the cupcakes, I let the idea of baking bread float around in my head for a couple of weeks until I fancied myself as a baker. I bought an extra kilo of flour, and picked up some dry yeast.

Finally, I had the chance to get my hands floury yesterday evening.

L-Ingliz Tea Room

While mucking around on Facebook a couple of weeks ago (yes, I have succumbed) I found out about a new place that was just about to open - L-Ingliz Tea Room - because one of my friends joined a Facebook page set up by the Tea Room's owner. That's one of the nice things about social networking sites, you, um, expand your social network.

Anyway, I showed the page to Mike and he thought it sounded great - especially the British doorstop sandwiches! So today we were out and about in the morning, and famished, so he suggested we try L-Ingliz.

I had already tried to find it previously, and had spent some time traipsing up and down Merchant Street looking for the Triq il-Ganc side street (there's no nameplate, but it's the continuation of the street running from St. John's Co-Cathedral and intersecting with Merchant Street, for some reason when it crosses Merchant Street it changes its name and becomes Triq il-Ganc).

Anyway since I had already invested in the necessary legwork to find the place, we were soon there. We ordered doorstop sandwiches (Coronation Chicken for Mike, and Brie and Cranberry for me), followed by scones with cream, jam and butter, and a slice of chocolate fudge cake with fudge icing.

The food was more or less OK but nothing special - we liked the sandwiches, which featured really thick slices of fresh white bread, although I found the crust a bit too chewy. The fillings were good, but the cranberry pretty much overpowered the taste of the brie, which defeats the whole point.

Dessert was a disappointment. The presentation was interesting - modern and minimalist for the scones, on a rectangular plate with the butter, cream and jam in individual pots, and more traditional and fancy for the chocolate cake with a dollop of cream on the side and chocolate powder sprinkled over the whole plate. However both the scones and the cake were very dry. The scones would have tasted better warm, and the cake didn't taste fudgy at all, although the icing did. Also, the scones had raisins or something similar in them, and so I had to pick them out (hate dried fruit). The fruit had all sunk to the bottom of the scone which, although making the removal easier for me, indicates a flaw in the baking (maybe the dough was not thick enough to support the weight of the fruit).

The decor was not at all what I expected. The place is small but that's OK, and the bare stone walls have a pleasing rustic look. The wooden beams overhead go well with the walls, but the tabletops are some kind of woven cane and the ceiling is covered with bamboo matting. Then there's a stainless-steel breakfast-bar type of thing running down one wall, and mounted above it are outdoor lanterns with energy-saving bulbs. I was expecting maybe some lace or chintz, maybe some dark wood, you know, a bit more tea-room-y.

My overall impression is that the place opened before it was quite ready - hence the clashing decor. I think that the recent opening also affects the food, and things have not quite settled down. So although today wasn't such a great experience, I'm not going to write off L-Ingliz - I think the atmosphere and the food will improve given a bit of time.

The name is very suggestive, but then when you walk in the place doesn't feel English at all - I think that if the decor and the food presentation (and glasses/plates) are changed to be as traditionally English as possible, then it would be a fun place to go, what what. If L-Ingliz doesn't have anything special about it except thick slices of bread, then there are other great cafe's in Valletta that I like to go to for food and/or ambience, but I really, really like the idea of an English-style tea room, so I'm hoping L-Ingliz will deliver what it promises.

The two sandwiches, one order of scones, one slice of cake and two diet Cokes came to Euro 10.50, which isn't so bad, but then Mike was hungry again in less than two hours - I think that he'd need two or three doorstops for lunch. So I don't think we should go back for lunch, but it's great for a mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack.

I asked about opening hours since I'm interested in going back, and I was told that they vary a bit, but it's generally from around 7am to around 3 or 4pm, Monday to Saturday. This means that I will hardly every get to go, since I'm usually in Valletta around 6pm, after work, or on Sunday afternoons, but I will keep it in mind for any future Saturday jaunts.

If you decide to go looking for it yourself, it's just opposite the Wise Owl bookshop, but please leave a couple of scones for me.

October (and a second year of marriage), here I come!

As pointed out by the wise guys on the previous post, September has indeed ended... and with it our first year of marriage.

Usually when a year ends or an anniversary of some type goes by, I usually think to myself wow, where did the year go? But in this case I'm not thinking that at all, because the year was so full.

Besides the usual business of going to work and staying alive, we had to set up the house because we got it habitable before the wedding but decided to do it up as we went along rather then spend lots of money all at once. So, as we needed them, we had to go find and buy appliances and furnishings, and Mike renovated one-and-a-half rooms (the box room is in progress). The housework, laundry and cooking can be very mundane, but they really fill up the days, and then there's the whole learning-how-not-to-have-disasters thing (the damage so far: two almost-fires, and a lot of grey underwear).

Under all that, we were also learning how to live with each other, which is mostly nice but of course not always *grin*.

All the married people I know would always smile knowingly and say things like "Marriage is hard work" and I thought to myself, hey, how hard could it be? But they're right, it IS hard! Mostly because you can't just do everything your own way, I think, you have to factor in each other and that's not always fun.

But, on the whole, the nice parts of marriage (like curling up in front of the TV together, and enjoying each other's cooking) are worth the not-so-nice parts (cleaning the toilet, and having arguments).

These days, marriage is becoming more uncommon among people our age, especially the way we did it (not living together beforehand), and I can understand this because making such a big, irrevocable commitment is very scary. I was very scared about it myself, actually.

But the terror was worth it - I'm glad I married Michael and I'm ready for the second year!

We just had a fantastic five days in Gozo to celebrate our anniversary, in the same farmhouse where we spent our honeymoon, and it was a very quiet, relaxing time. At first it felt strange to be spending so much time together without errands to run or housework to do, but then we had fun just being tourist-y and lazy and relaxed.

Gozo is definitely our holiday destination of choice because you get the best of both worlds - when you want down time, in the farmhouse there's cable TV, a pool, games and a small but adequate kitchen. When you want to get out, it's easy to get around by car, and it's not far at all from the shops in Rabat to the beaches on the coast. And, you speak the language!

We both missed the cats (awww), and it felt too quiet without the mischief-making Fuzzball, but we didn't miss his silent but deadly farts.

Anyway, here's to many more years together - may my cooking skills and Mike's washing-up skills both improve along the way.