Fishing

During the night, urgent and well informed messages from family (one being a travel expert, another a health expert) were pushing for us to at least investigate getting home early.  However, the airline was really very backward in coming forward with any information or guidance.  One auto-response said they’d get back to us in 28 days. Another said the helplines and chatlines are not open for a few hours yet and are in any case very busy.  We were faced with our own powerlessness. Step One! 

Being Sunday, it had always been our plan to go south to Marsaxlokk, the fishing village with a colourful market and harbour, so that’s what we did. The route skirting the inner suburbs of Valletta was exciting to say the least, with violent swoops and turns, short-notice changes of lane, and the satnav unable to keep up.  However, of course, in the end we made it down to the quay, a wide and colourful place filled with bobbing boats, huge cranes on the skyline at the freeport, a massive gas-tanker-ship out at anchor, and a lot of hopeful market traders with masses of gleaming fish, veg, leather goods, dried foods, trinkets and the like.    

    

   

  

However, there were really hardly any visitors.  A glum atmosphere pervaded. There were some French visitors, but I think most were British, and as far as we could hear, everyone was talking about coronavirus and its dire consequences.  We had a coffee, mooched around.  We need not have worried about avoiding crowds… there were hardly any.  The water was pretty clean, we could see baby fish in the depths.  

The name Marsaxlokk comes from a wind, which blows from the south. The fish on sale were very varied, some obviously farmed  (you can see the tanks out in the bays), but some so bright and shining and unusual that they must have just come out of the depths in a time honoured way. 

  

We stopped for another refreshment and a Geordie lass leapt up to take our photo for us…. she had moved to Malta a few months ago. She loved it.  Her cleavage was spectacular. Her skirt was very short and the snakeskin belt very tight. Her thick black tights had impressive ladders in them. She had the company of two guys for her coffee break and kept urging us to move to the island.  Why go back? she asked.  Why not stay?  She had heard that the government was going to impose a lockdown from 19th-24th, and then stop it. 

We walked back and round to the eastern end, to a handy little beach, and into a tourist office. The instant and obligatory hand-sanitising meant we could talk to the lady sitting in there. She said she’d heard there might be action from the Maltese government, going on through April and May. She confirmed what we had already discovered - that all the churches and museums are now closed. The tourist industry will suffer.

 Lunch was really very good indeed at a small place set back from the quay - Terrone. The Serbian waiter and his staff were attentive, brought us our one starter to share (stuffed courgette flowers, deep fried), and then a single plate of two Striped Mullet steaks with roasted vegetables, again to share. 

  

Absolutely superb, and with a couple of desserts it came to 49€.   We have tootled back along the coast, not calling in to the temple sites or the famous Blue Grotto - just looking from a distance.   

  

We’ve checked again with EasyJet - they are waiving flight-change charges but we’d still have to pay for £68 each to get onto the midday flight home on Tuesday (first available seats)… that is just about 6 hours earlier than our original bookings, so we’re sticking with Plan A.  Back here in the flat, we hear the birdsong all around.  We have driven past miles and miles of beautiful drystone walls, some tumbling down, some so new and precise they almost hurt to look at. We stopped at a roadside veg shop and bought a little bag of chard to have for supper.  One more day (Monday), then pack up and go home on Tuesday evening DV.