This is Gozo calling...

First of all, thanks are in order to Toni Sant and Robert Micallef, for giving me this opportunity of a little wider readership for a weekend, before returning to my 20 to 30 hits a day ramblings that make up my own blog.

I feel that Gozo deserves and needs all the attention it can get, and this is a great way of giving it some. In that respect, I’ll refrain from telling you all about our cat’s antics and my miscellaneous miseries whose cause, more often than not, is the weather. Promise!

So, you want to know what life in Gozo looks like from the viewpoint of a foreigner living here. It might disappoint you that I don’t differ much from the rest of the Gozitans. After all, my perspective is the same as that of everyone else.

As a tourist, I marvelled at the laid-back Gozitan way of life. But what is a virtue in special circumstances, such as a relaxing holiday, becomes a nightmare when you depend on third persons for a particular task, for example a plumber, a carpenter or a car mechanic. Nobody will ever refuse work or give you a realistic time frame for works – and stick to it. “Call me tomorrow,” you’re told. Alas, tomorrow never quite turns out to be the day you think it would. “Next week” or “next month” both have similar connotations.

Strangely enough, many of them (though not all!) use the same antics when it comes to getting paid. In spite of several reminders from our side, we are always awaiting some bill or other for works that were completed a year, even two years ago. In the meantime, while carrying around the uncomfortable knowledge of bills waiting to be paid, you’re often left clueless just how much the damage is going to be in terms of money!

On the other hand and only at first glance in strange contrast to what I just said, if you are in employment in the private sector you are certainly expected to give that little bit more than you are able to – no matter where that limit happens to be. A rather committed worker is most likely burnt out before retirement age. Nowhere is the advice, “if you want something done, give it to a busy person,” followed more diligently than in Gozo!

You might ask, “What is she still doing here if everything is doom and gloom?” Well, first of all, I condensed several negative observations in the space of one short article, and if I had to fight all of the above in the space of, say, a week, I probably would consider escape. At the end of the day, however, life in Gozo still gives you a fair return for what you invest in it. Raising your children in relative safety, for example. Then there are activities like sipping a gin & tonic at water’s edge in Xlendi, enjoying a countryside picnic in complete solitude or even just sitting with a coffee and a book in my own garden… all those “little things” that make it worthwhile for me to be living in Gozo!