My apologies for not publishing a ‘real’ post for a while but, like many bloggers it seems, I’ve been busy doing nothing in particular.
Anyway a few months ago now, my wife organised a trip to Iceland with her friend Kate, so I had a look for something to do while she was away. Naturally I wanted to find some warmer weather and I looked at the AIMS marathon calendar for some inspiration. To my delight I discovered that the Malta Challenge Marathon was on at the same time. It consists of 3 races over 3 days, covering a 10 miler, a 5k then a Half marathon. So I entered, arranged all my travel and set about getting fit. My training was going really well (even running while I was away in Finland and Mykonos) and I’d managed to get up to 20k in a respectable 1h 50 mins, so I figured I was ready… That is until my final training run, the Saturday before I left, and my left calf seized up yet again! (Insert a suitable curse or emoji here).
Thankfully I had another reason to go… My father spent some time in Malta after the War, as a Signalman on a minesweeper and he had mentioned enjoying some time ashore down a street which he called “The Gut”, but is actually called Strait Street in English. So when my wife and I went to Malta / Gozo a few years ago, we searched for a copy of a book by George Cini, called Strait Street. We couldn’t find an English copy anywhere, so I got in touch with George and managed to get hold of a copy to give to my dad. During my email exchanges with George, I mentioned my dad’s book and he suggested I present a copy of it, personally, to the Fondazzioni Wirt Artna (FWA), which is an organisation dedicated to preserving the history of the island. And so that was also arranged…
So, like London buses, you don’t hear anything from me for a while and now a few posts of my, sometimes very wet, time in Malta & Gozo, beginning with the Mdina…
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Lovely images from “The Silent city” of Mdina. Congrats to the marathon, you made it! 🏆 Hope you had an enjoyable time in Malta 🇲🇹 despite the rain ☔️ …and the ongoing political turbulence. Or maybe you didn’t notice, hopefully. Looking forward to more post from your visit. Greetings from Sarawak!!
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Hi Anita. Well, I have mixed feelings about my visit, I’m afraid. Some aspects were very good (as in the churches and the history) but other parts I wasn’t so keen on – the beaches, the weather and the amount of cars (making parking in the towns difficult). I also didn’t run any of the races, due to my injury, so I guess I wasn’t in the best of moods when I went… And, sorry to step on your patch for a while. Hope you have a nice holiday. 😀
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Obviously I didn’t read what you wrote properly. I’m sorry for that, it must have felt a bit frustrating considering you had looked forward to this and trained to be fit. Malta today is not like when we moved here year 2000. We are planning to move on, maybe to Spain where the climate is also good compared to Sweden. Or Malaysia but if so we cannot bring our beloved dog Fanny. Life is an exciting journey 😁
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That’s OK. I do that all the time! I hope you find somewhere nice to settle. I’m not sure where I would choose in your position. We may yet return to the UK and the weather is certainly a factor in where we might eventually decide to live. As, you say, life is one long adventure! 😊
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good on ya for getting some training in… sorry it didn’t work out! What a pity! Malta is our next destination, we have friends that live there and keep inviting us, so next year we are going to take a trip…. LOVELY to see your pics!
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Yes, my training was going really well – perhaps too well! I hope you enjoy Malta. There are some nice bits and some not so pretty, but overall it’s worth the trip.
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