I must write this in a flash as it is too near the deadline to hum and haw over my diary. I have just come from the launch of the new summer menu at the Quadro Restaurant at the Westin Dragonara Resort now served al fresco on the Verandah overlooking the sea.

At the bar we were served with flutes of Champagne and canapés followed by a shooter glass of Lobster & Prawn Bisque which was truly delicious. I could have had several shooters easily but was too polite to ask for more. Then a number of hacks and hackettes proceeded into the restaurant itself where the refectory-type table was beautifully napped in white damask – well perhaps it wasn’t damask but perhaps it was. I am looking back through a haze of delicious Chilean Chardonnay and the original bubbly served at the bar.

Yes, the table had a pristine tablecloth and was decorated with shells – small and very large Conch shells. Well, maybe they were Conch, maybe not. I will leave that to the marine biologists to decide.

There was Focaccia and Quadro salad served with the Westin’s delicious rolls – or maybe they were buns but it doesn’t really matter as long as they were delicious and of course I helped myself to the butter and made certain that every little hole in the rolls/buns whether brown or white, oozed butter. I was not in a mood for dieting. I never am and thought that for this meal I would let go of this lifelong venture.

Then the real feast really started and the Tuna Loin was brought before us. I had no idea that tuna actually has a loin and found it an interesting new fact. I looked at the menu and knew, instantly, that I simply had to skip one of the five dishes about to be served and so did not partake of what seemed to be delicious slices of fish – the Tuna Loin.

Next came the Juniper and Sloe Gin cured Salmon on a Salmon Raviola, Parma Ham and Prawn base, with a Parmesan Cream Sauce. These are slightly experimental dishes and the creations of Jonathan Vella, head chef at Quadro Restaurant who grew up in the kitchen of his parents’ Mellieha restaurant. I made a mental note of this dish. I eat salmon once a week, just to be nice to my heart and my arteries since for the rest of the week I treat them so badly. But, on the whole, I find salmon rather bland. So, the combination of salmon and Parma ham seems like a change from blandness. I have to pronounce this dish delicious. Believe it or not there was another éntree, or perhaps at this stage of the menu, one would call it something else. I have no time to consult my Larousse but whatever, the Grilled Sea Bream fillets topped with sundried tomatoes and so on, was a most satisfactory dish though the word satisfactory seems to be an understatement. Insomma, I enjoyed it thoroughly. I congratulated myself for not partaking of the Tuna Loin dish. How could I have coped with all this? I am only four foot eleven after all and I cannot expect St Anthony to come to my rescue just because I’ve decided to over eat. The service was impeccable and these lovely people who looked after us so well deserve a website of their own and even a perfume named after them.

The meal finished with a beautifully presented Lemon and Ginger Cheesecake with a red fruit compote. Un po troppo but I ate it little by little and followed it with a Cappuccino. I no longer enjoy the dense, post prandial Espressos of my youth. Must be age. And would you believe it, we were then brought the loveliest mqaret. The Westin’s mqaret are a chef d’oeuvre, beating even those which I have been purchasing all the years of my life, from

the Mqaret Man outside Kingsway. I thought he was the tops but alas, I have had to demote him after the Westin mqaret.

Mr Vella, the chef, truly deserved a standing ovation and an avalanche of kisses at least from the hackettes but at this stage in my life being kissed by me is no longer a treat, so I desisted and left the poor young man in the peace of his kitchen and blew him a few kisses mentally instead.

The thought of mqaret brings me to the Protest march in Valletta which was such a raging success, with the environmentalists clamouring for the instant beatification of Santa Giovanna Debono – I loved the placard Giovanna Santa Subito. I took a small hors d’oeuvre dish with me and a jam spoon with a coloured apple at the top of it, hoping to make some noise. But there wasn’t occasion to use it since no one else had brought anything particularly noisy with them. They just made a racket with their voices etc. and it was enough. Dr Claire Bonello came with a banner as expected of her: Mum and Dad went to Malta and all they saw was a lousy contruction site. No one can quibble about that one. Rachel Attard was there doing Bondi’s bidding and asking mostly housewives whether they thought the Ramla development was going to effect the Roman Villa. What a question to ask. Only those who had made a thorough study of the area and archaeologists were in a position to answer that absurd question. What was she trying to prove? That some of us were there just to boost up numbers and didn’t really know what the protest march was about? How wrong she is. We may not have known the details of it and we don’t all have the time to keep track of Mepa, land speculators and what the Romans did. But we know that we don’t want Gozo to go the way of Malta. I was conceived there, damn it, my parents did not go to the Caribbean on a cruise for their honeymoon but to Gozo and I feel strongly about it. We’ve ruined Malta and we don’t want them to ruin Gozo as well. I want my grandchildren to be able to enjoy it just as I had. And although some 1,500 in that dreadful heat, fit only for camels and desert lizards (are there lizards in the desert?), turned up for the protest march, there were many, many more who were with us in spirit, as they simply could not make it.

I made myself watch Bondi Minus on Tuesday to prove to myself how biased he is. It was hilarious to watch Bondi stumble over the Roman villa too. So Rachel A. expected those at the march to know the details of the Ramla Bay plan but her own well, call him boss if you like, knew nothing about it himself. But he is very good at bluffing his way through life. I will leave it at that. I enjoyed the march and Astrid, among others, keeps the flags flying. I was almost in tears when we sang our National Anthem although I did not know the words of the second verse.

I had parked in Floriana and made myself go right past the Mqaret Man. I almost backtracked but didn’t. I was very pleased with myself that day.