Yes, of course, I mean Christmas and the New Year. What did you think I meant?
We had a very nice time, thanks for asking. We did all the usual stuff and, since the alleged decline of the Covid pandemic, we even invited our neighbours George and Christine in for a seasonal drink and a bowlful of nibbles. George appeared maskless for the first time... well the first time I've seen his nose and chin for three years. I'm afraid I did rather annoy my wife by winding George up when I enquired whether he was being rather reckless. After all the disease hasn't been eliminated... far from it! I have to admit he was stoic in the extreme, especially when downing almost half a bottle of my Glenmorangie single-malt scotch whiskey.
Never a man to harbour one obsession when he could harbour more: his latest fixation seems to be the rather unlikely subject of the British royal family. Now I have to admit to not really ever giving these people much attention, but George seems totally obsessed by them. Between mouthfuls of Twiglets and slurps of my very expensive scotch he asked what he thought of the House of Windsor.
I'm afraid I pretended to misunderstand his approach, so I replied something to the effect of: "I don't think I'm acquainted with the house of "winsome"... did you say?" He snorted with irritation and snapped: "No, I mean the bloody Brit royals." I should probably have extended the irritation by quipping something like: "Dunno really, I don't smoke Royals or any other brand." But I contented myself with a non comprendo shake of the head.
George was away: "Bloody leeches... waste of money the lot of them. And destined for the scrap heap, sooner rather than later. No glitzy royal wedding can save them now. They are history, mark my words." There you are, you heard it here first. Straight from the horse's mouth, well George's anyway and from some angles and in a bad light he can sometimes resemble one of those trotters you see reluctantly pulling overweight gentlemen on sulkies around the race-track at Marsa. Is he right? I don't have the faintest idea; but I somehow feel that the British royals have a good few miles left in them yet.
In Malta we, in general, are supportive of the Brits royal family. Indeed there have been times when we have been visited by various members including the Queen. She apparently claimed that the three years she spent here in the late 1940s were some of the happiest of her life. However, we are a good deal more ambivalent about some of the fringe royals.
When I was at Uni in the UK we had the dubious honour of having the queen's sister, Princess Margaret as our Chancellor... a ceremonial role. I never met her, but some of my fellow students reported that she was fine as long as the cameras were rolling... but when they were off her, she could be pretty poisonous. C'est la vie.
And so to New Year's Eve. Did we whoop it up under the spectacular firework display in Mellieha? Party till dawn in the promised Valletta NYE sensational celebrations? Or fill our faces with vastly over-priced Christmas leftovers at a St Julian's restaurant/hotel? Nope, actually we simply fell asleep in front of the TV and cheerfully missed the whole midnight thing by about two-and-a-half hours.