Day 0 - Arrival

London: max 17ºC, min 10ºC, damp, showers
Gozo: max 26ºC, min 18ºC, showers then sunny


The day starts in a blind panic as I realise I've slept through the clock radio for twenty minutes. The watch alarm, set for ten minutes earlier, failed to go off - again.

Strictly the day had started at midnight as we were still packing the bike and tranferring the contents of an overloaded suitcase to a larger one while worrying about the weight allowance and whether to try taking the monitor. Finally I faced up to the fact that it was really going to happen and booked the travel insurance before retiring to bed just before one.

So now I try to wake my son who was going to stay up to drive me to Gatwick but is now asleep, make a cup of tea, have a quick shower to make me feel at least half human and pull on the clothes I'd thoughfully laid out the night before.

Check-in at 04:25 was blissfully quiet and the clerk friendly, but intelligent conversation was difficult at 4.30am so I couldn't grasp whether I'd still pay excess baggage on top of the extra item charge for the monitor, having got an increased allowance for the bicycle. Later I convince myself that it would have been fine because they never weighed the bike but on the other hand the monitor would have been trashed. Interstingly they don't weight bikes (too awkward?) but i see them weighing golf clubs. Security is smooth despite my bag carrying more computing and communications equipment than some third world countries.

I resisted the temptaton to play Flight Simulator on the flight. :-)

As we were bussed to the terminal I could see our baggage unloaded and reassuringly my bike was on top of a cage so hopefully undamaged. At baggage reclaim it came out almost last which was another good sign but I wouldn't be able to inspect it until I reached the apartment.

It only took seconds to spot the driver holding up a card with my name. He introduced himself as David and within minutes I heard that he ran a PC company in Sannat and did taxi work for extra money. It takes about 40 minutes to get to the ferry terminal at Circewwa and we had about 15 minutes wait for the ferry. It's a very well organised roll-on-roll-off operation with two ferries operating a 45 minute service in both directions during peak periods and running 24 hours a day all year round, albeit with longer gaps overnight.

I explained my dilemma over the monitor and printer and he reckoned he could get what I needed so we detoured via his office in Sannat. A one room converted garage, he had on display cables, hubs, speakers, telephones, memory sticks, in short all the sort of useful bits you find you need in a hurry. He couldn't find anything for immediate delivery so we exchanged email addresses and agreed to keep in touch.

Finally at the apartment we met the owner Mario who showed me round and after chatting for about an hour, offered to drive me into Victoria later to buy a SIM for my phone. I'd brought an old Nokia phone on Vodafone pay-as-you-go which I hoped would take a local Vodafone SIM and an network-free Nokia (the same model in a later casing) to take my O2 SIM rather than carry my PDA when out cycling. If I couldn't use the former for a local SIM the latter would definitely work so I knew I'd be covered one way or another. There was also the Pirelli dual-phone for Voice over IP but more of that later.

I did something I'd never done before - I unpacked! Normally when travelling I live out of a suitcase but I needed to make this more permanent.

It's worth introducing Mario at this point. The family has rented a villa from him for a couple of years and this summer I spoke to him about other properties with a vague idea about buying and he confirmed that he had a range of properties including some still being developed.

As for the internet connection that I'd explained was so essential, Mario hands me a box with a modem, points to the phone socket and says he's sure I understand it better than he does. This should be straightforward but there's no DSL light on the modem and with no telephone to check the line with so I give up for now.

Scouting the flat I find a couple of unsecure wireless connections, but the only one that works must be across the road as I have to perch the laptop on the bed in one of the front bedrooms.

I unpack and the bike, refit the pedals and pump the tyres which a friend recommended deflating for air travel to avoid bursting at high altitude, all of which takes the best part of an hour it's so well wrapped. All seems okay but it's too late to go out as I only have half an hour to shower and change before Mario is due.

I get talked into the €50 SIM because there's no charge for the SIM itself that way and it lasts a year. There's around €3 tax deducted from the credit for some reason that I'll probably understand in the fullness of time. The SIM works perfectly with a simple call to register the credit - prompts are given in Maltese followed by English. Over a coffee I explain my plans but it seems like every third person we pass wants to say hello to Mario. In such a small community (40,000) this is inevitable he explains.

Mario drops me back at the apartment but I head off for a walk to refresh my memory of the village. I peer into the Rangers Bar but it doesn't look as welcoming as I remember it. A mile or so of wandering round the back streets later I'm gasping for a pint so I throw caution to the wind and head in. It's about half full of diners - the true name being Rangers Cafe and Snack Bar after all - but it's fine to just have a beer. Barcelona are playing Real Betis on the telly in the corner but the background music is opera. I have food in the fridge after all but the plan unwinds as I see bruchetta fillowed by pizza and pasta arrive at the next table so I ask to see a menu. I aim for something light on both tummy and pocket, but the prosciutto pizza at €4.20 (about £3.60) turns out to be a stunning value 12 incher that hits the spot.

When the match ends i stroll home replete on pizza, football and beer- not a bad start to my adventure. At the apartment it's only 10pm, or 9pm on the uk time I left this morning so i fire up the laptop but before I know it, it's zzzzzz +++NO CARRIER+++

Prologue

A bit about Gozo:

It's the second largest of the islands that make up the country of Malta, and yet it thinks it's a country in its own right, a little like Wales or Scotland perhaps? That the larger island is known as Malta but the country of Malta includes the islands of Gozo, Comino and two smaller ones causes a little confusion at first. But viewed from Gozo Malta is almost another country. All clear now?

The islands lie on a line between Sicily and Tunisia, about 90km from the former and twice that from the latter. Historically Malta (the country) has been controlled by Sicilians, Romans, Phoenicians, Byzantines, Arabs, Turks, Sicily again for the Catholic church, Napoleon and most recently Britain. It's now an independent state with full membership of the EU.

A bit about me:

I'm a IT consultant in my late forties - very late, as in three weeks left late, with three children, the first two grown up, and separated.

I've been working for a leading hedge fund for four years developing and maintaining their settlement systems, single handed most of that time. At the peak last year it was processing transactions of around $6Bn/day. I'd start my day logging in from home by 7am at to make sure everything overnight had worked because teams in London and Hong Kong were relying on it and be logged in again in the evening until I went to bed around 1.30.

Then earlier this year a friend died of cancer at just 51 and over the next few everything changed. I'd spent 25 years working my balls off, obsessed with providing for the family, ensuring the roof over their heads, food on the table and much more, and now the mortgage was paid off, there was money in the bank, one of the nicest people is the world was dead at much the same age as me and suddenly the things that had seemed so important didn't matter any more. A good friend said he'd realised that middle age had started one day in his early forties when he woke up one morning with the realisation that one day he was going to die but this was different.

So enough of this morbid stuff already. I figured I can manage for a year or two, possibly indefinitely, on some part time clients and maybe short contracts in the longer term. So I handed in my notice and I'm going to live dangerously from now on. Probably not skydiving or bungee jumping but some of those things I always wanted to do one day like scuba diving, learning to fly, relearn piano and guitar, maybe learn drums and join a band, write a book, start a dotcom 2.0 venture, it's now or never...

I'd vaguely planned that at some point I'd get a second home in Trieste in northern Italy, where I'd spent a lot of my childhood but I recently discovered Gozo and as I think I wrote elsewhere, if I wasn't going to do anything for a while, Gozo seemed like a fine place to not do anything.

I'm going to leave it here or this will never get published. The gaps will fill themselves in later, so now as we head for Gozo please adjust your watches forward one hour and your mindset back forty years.

T-1 - Last minute preparation

I had to see a client before I leave so the day's going to revolve around that. All goes reasonably well until the last minute when someone wants to talk to me about something - he insists that it's so important I must stop, though it wasn't important enough for him to reply to my email about it a week ago.

On the way back I head for the shopping centre to get a suitcase as I need one larger than my cabin sized one. I went to Argos and, still unsure whether I would need the medium or large suitcase, bought both - they're only £10-£15 and they'll come in handy one way or another.

While there I realise that the last minute fracas at the client means I forgot to get some old bubblewrap that's usually lying around to pack to bike with. A panic call to my son and he's got a little spare in his office that he can bring home.

I spend a couple of hours sorting and packing, running through the checklists I'd prepared, then off for a drink with my sister and when I get back my son should be around to help pack the bike.

T-2 - Introduction

I'm off to Gozo in two days, not for a whole year but with the intention to visit a number of times over period of a year to see if I'd like to live here permanently or part time, or at least use it as a base as I wind down to retirement. In case you hadn't guessed the title alludes to 'A Year in Provence' by Peter Mayle.

This is my first attempt at a blog so I'll probably dwell on the trivial and skip over the interesting bits but bear with me, give me constructive criticism and it'll improve - maybe.

In fact this began a couple of months ago when I was dragged here kicking and screaming with the family. They'd booked a villa for two weeks but I was to be allowed home in just a week if I behaved myself. I'd just resigned from the IT department of a leading hedge fund - immaculate timing as it turned out - and was thinking of taking a bit of a break for many reasons that will come out in this blog. After a day or two of boredom at the villa we* got on our bikes** to go exploring, and an idea took shape that if I wasn't going to do anything for six months or so then Gozo would be a great place to not do anything.

So with two days to go I'm frantically trying to get the last few things I need, to decide how (or even whether) to ship a big screen and printer to go with the laptop, (damn you, SleazyJet's excess bagagge charges), to pack the bicycle that I haven't even put through its paces yet, and try to leave my flat in a state that will survive my first three weeks without me. Yes, the first trip is just for three weeks. I've rented an apartment from Mario who owns the villa the family has stayed in over the last few years and who'll probably feature prominently in some future postings. The plan is to find somewhere cheaper for a long term base rather than rush into buying.

I run into the town centre for the last minute shopping. I need to change a bunch of things M+S online sent out wrongly and some stupid things like more trainer socks, a casual belt and above all I need one of those compact wallets with a change pocket and just room for an ID card and one or two payment cards like my son has rather than my formal leather thing stuffed with cards.

With the essentials done I've run out of time for shopping today so that'll have to wait until tomorrow, as will a last visit to a client who I do some part-time work for. Check-in is at 04:35 on Wednesday so I don't want to end up spending all Tuesday night packing but at this rate...

* my son, his girlfriend and myself
** actually rented from the unlikely named Joe Sultana opposite the bus station in Victoria