Early Delivieries
The bell rang at 7:05am this morning. As I mentioned in earlier posts, the bell is always ringing with people having some odd reason that hardly ever pertains to me, so I tend to ignore it if I am not expecting anyone. Half the time it is somebody claiming to have forgotten the keys, and the other times I do not always understand what they are after or I realise that they have rung all the bells in the building and somebody else is answering already. This time, however, M was still at home, so he answered and proceded to buy a gas canister for the gas heater that we are supposed to buy. Electricity prices are high here, and there is a government surcharge that has made it even more expensive, so many people are getting portable gas heaters instead for the winter. It is about time that we make the change as well, because the inside of the flat is getting quite chilly lately. (It is often warmer outside during the day, but what are you going to do).
I told M that I was glad he was home to deal with this. I probably would not have understood what was going on and decided to ignore them along with the dozens of “strange” such incidents every week. M said now I will have to make sure I answer every time, in case it is the gas people again and we need to exchange the gas canister for a full one. Apparently they only last about one week. It is great that there is a home delivery service, but the whole thing feels so random. I do not suppose they could actually have a schedule, so that you know in advance when they are coming to the neighbourhood and can prepare accordingly to be at home and ready with the canister and the money? Sigh.
In other odd news, though not strictly Malta-related… I was watching the Italian news, and apparently there is a nationwide strike of audiovisual employees. Therefore, the news is temporarily consisting of just the news reader (who said he was authorised by some specific entity) and no video clips from reporters. Wow, I was quite impressed by the situation! I am sure living with such strikes must be terribly annoying, but from an outsider’s perspective it actually borders on quaint. And did you know the news report takes only 8 minutes in this format?
Hi there!
I like reading your blog and it seems that things are going fairly swimmingly in Malta! How about some pics though!! I hope that M is doing well too!
Adam and J
Thanks! I *was* enjoying reading yours too, back when you actually wrote in it
I will try to figure out the pictures again, I tried but could not figure it out!
It actually surprises me that the news takes a full eight minutes to read. All the words in a half-hour news broadcast would take up only half a newspaper page. That means that each broadcast journalist contributes only a paragraph or so of text to the show. Yet broadcast journalists get paid loads more than print journalists–at least in the U.S. If the situation is similar in Italy, why do they need a pay raise?
Stay warm (but try not to blow yourself up). Gros bisous!