41 degrees
A snapshot of life as an Englishwoman who had a mid-life crisis and moved to Malta during the pandemic.
The elderly Maltese lady calls to me in her native tongue from her rooftop laundry garden; grabbing pegs and gesticulating urgently. Pointing at the damp clothes haphazardly strung over thin wires stretched between stone walls, she mimics the action of using the pegs to hold my clothes in place. Puffing out her toffee-coloured crinkled cheeks and blowing hard to mimic a gusty wind, she points again to the pegs, pushing them towards me.
“Grazzi hafna,” I smile gratefully, in my limited Maltese.
Smiling back, delighted with herself for helping the foreigner with her chores, she shuffles between her own rows of laundry, before retreating back inside her home.
I take the pegs, but there is no wind. It’s 41 degrees and the air is as still as the ancient catacombs of Rabat. The heat is asphyxiating, and tonight, I will sleep on the rooftop in the cooler night air, with the stone saints of the adjacent church watching over me, and no pegs to hold me in place when my vivid dreams take hold.
From “Don’t Tell me to Breathe When I’m Already Drowning: A diary of moving to Malta during a global pandemic.”