Of Late Plumbers and Travelling Madonnas.

More than twenty years ago, I swapped Austria for Malta. I expected sunshine, sea and warmer winters. I didn’t expect an entirely different interpretation of time, noise, food, neighbours… or life itself.

When I moved from Austria to Malta more than twenty years ago, I thought I had a fairly good idea of what I was getting myself into. Sunshine, sea, Mediterranean food, warmer winters.

Lovely.

What nobody mentioned was that I was also moving somewhere with an entirely different relationship with time, an extraordinary tolerance for fireworks, an ability to turn a quick coffee into an afternoon event and where a five-minute chat in the street can somehow involve half the neighbourhood.

Eventually, you stop asking questions 😀

It took me approximately five minutes to fall in love with the weather. The rest took a little longer. Because actually living in the Mediterranean is very different from spending two weeks here with a straw hat and an Aperol Spritz.

I came from Austria, where we have a rather affectionate relationship with organisation. If you make an appointment for nine o’clock in the morning, there is a reasonable expectation that something will happen at approximately nine o’clock. Preferably at nine. Nine-oh-five is forgivable.

Nine-fifteen requires an explanation.

Malta introduced me to a somewhat more philosophical interpretation of the clock.

Not long after I arrived, I needed a plumber. We arranged for him to come at 9 am. Nine came and went. Then ten. Then eleven. By noon, I was no longer concerned about the plumbing. I was concerned about the whereabouts of the plumber. At 1.45 pm, he finally appeared. My Austrian brain had spent nearly five hours preparing for this confrontation, so naturally I asked him where on earth he had been. He looked at me genuinely baffled by the question. Not embarrassed. Not apologetic. Baffled.

He explained that he’d had other work to do. I pointed out, perhaps with slightly more Austrian emphasis than was strictly necessary, that we had had an appointment at nine. He looked at me as though I were missing something incredibly obvious and explained that work takes as long as it takes.

And that was that.

There are moments when you realise you haven’t simply moved country. You’ve crossed into another universe. I wish I could tell you that twenty-plus years of Mediterranean living have transformed me into a completely serene woman who now accepts such things with a gracious smile.

They have not. There is still an Austrian living inside me who would quite like to know WHAT TIME YOU ARE COMING. 😂

But I’ve also come to understand something I couldn’t see then. My plumber wasn’t necessarily trying to be inconsiderate. The previous job took as long as it took, so mine started when that one finished. My carefully constructed schedule was simply not the governing force of the universe I had assumed it to be.

That plumber probably has absolutely no idea that more than twenty years later he has made it into an article about Mediterranean living. I rather like that.

Nobody warned me about the noise either

If your idea of Mediterranean living involves silent mornings, gently rustling olive trees and the distant sound of waves, I should probably tell you something before you move here. The Mediterranean can be loud.

Church bells ring. Dogs bark. Families conduct conversations at a volume an Austrian might initially interpret as the beginning of a serious domestic dispute, only to discover everyone is perfectly happy. Cars beep. Neighbours call to one another. Village festas arrive with marching bands, bells, music and enough fireworks to make you wonder briefly whether the island is under attack.

Morning fireworks were a particularly interesting discovery. There is something wonderfully Maltese about being woken by an enormous explosion, looking around in alarm and discovering that nobody else appears remotely concerned. Eventually, you stop asking. Somebody, somewhere, is celebrating something.

The funny thing is that what initially felt chaotic eventually became part of the soundtrack of home. When I return from somewhere quieter, Malta can feel as though someone has suddenly turned the volume back up.

Yet there is life in that noise. People are outside. Things are happening. Someone is always talking to someone. Mediterranean life isn’t necessarily peaceful, but it is very, very alive.

And then there is the food. I work in nutrition, so you might imagine that I would be the person most likely to talk about food endlessly. I have met my match. One of the things that amused me when I first moved here was just how much conversation revolves around it. What we’re eating. What we ate yesterday. Where somebody bought the fish. Whose tomatoes are better. Which bakery makes the best bread. What someone’s mother puts into a particular dish and why everybody else’s version is obviously wrong.

It took me a while to realize that all this talk about food isn't really just about food.

Food here isn’t an inconvenient biological requirement squeezed between appointments. It is woven into family, celebration, memory and everyday life. Recipes belong to people. Certain foods belong to seasons. Others belong to festas, Sundays, Christmas, Easter or particular villages. You don’t simply eat a dish; quite often there is a story attached to it. And there is almost always an opinion attached to it. Several opinions, actually. Usually delivered simultaneously.

Privacy required a little adjustment too

Coming from Austria, I was accustomed to a certain amount of personal space. Malta is a small island. Gozo is even smaller. Anonymity is therefore… ambitious.

People know people. More importantly, people know people who know people. Mention someone and sooner or later you’ll hear, “Ah yes, her cousin is married to my neighbour’s brother.” Of course. There is always a connection.

In villages especially, life happens close together. Doors open onto narrow streets. People sit outside. Conversations travel. News travels even faster. Initially, this can feel strange when you’re used to a more private northern European culture. But there is another side to it that I’ve grown to love. People notice one another. Someone hasn’t been seen for a while? Somebody asks. An elderly neighbour needs something? Somebody knows. A newcomer appears? Somebody wants to know who they are, where they came from and quite possibly what they’re having for dinner.

Nosy? Occasionally. 😂

But also connected. And I think we’ve lost some of that elsewhere.

This sense of connection is part of something else I’ve come to appreciate deeply: tradition here hasn’t been neatly packed away in a museum. It is still part of ordinary life. You see small statues of the Virgin Mary beside people’s front doors. Village churches aren’t simply beautiful buildings to photograph; they are part of the identity of the village. Festas aren’t staged because visitors find them charming. Families have been participating in them for generations.

Old salt pans still sit along the coastline. Fishermen still head out to sea. Local bakeries produce bread that people have been eating since childhood. Families return to the same places and cook recipes passed down through generations. Malta has changed enormously during the years I’ve lived here. It is busier, more developed and much more international than the island I first arrived on in 2004.. But underneath all of that, there are things that stubbornly refuse to disappear.

I love that stubbornness.

And then there is mela

At some point when living in Malta, you discover mela. Trying to translate it is a mistake. Mela can mean yes. Or well. Or obviously. Or okay. Or therefore. Or “what did you expect?” Or “that’s settled then.” Or possibly nothing whatsoever. Its precise meaning depends on the circumstances, facial expression, tone of voice and, I suspect, the position of the moon.

Eventually you start using it yourself.

That’s when you know things have gone too far.

And perhaps that’s what happens when you live somewhere for more than twenty years. You stop being entirely the person who arrived. I’m still Austrian. I still like things organised. I still believe an appointment at nine should bear at least a passing relationship to nine o’clock. I appreciate efficiency and I like a plan.

But I’ve also become Mediterranean enough to know that some of the best moments of my life would never have appeared on one. The lunch that lasted all afternoon. The unexpected person who joined the table. The swim I hadn’t planned to take. The conversation that made me late. The evening when nobody wanted to go home yet. The walk that became much longer because we wanted to see what was around the next corner.

Living here hasn’t taught me to abandon structure. It has taught me that structure isn’t the same thing as life. There is a difference, and it took me years to understand it.

Maybe that’s why Gozo gets me every time

Even after all these years in Malta, Gozo does something to me. Perhaps because everything I’ve come to love about Mediterranean life feels slightly more concentrated there. The villages are smaller. Traditions sit closer to the surface. You turn a corner and find a tiny square, an old stone balcony, a statue beside a doorway or a view across fields towards the sea.

It’s imperfect. Sometimes gloriously so. Things don’t always happen exactly when you expect them to. The road may not lead where you thought it did. The little place you planned to visit might be closed because, well… it’s closed.

Twenty years ago, that might have irritated me. Now? Okay, it can still irritate me. Personal growth has its limits. 😂

But more often than not, something else happens instead. You find another place. You sit down somewhere. You talk to somebody. You take the long way around. And the thing that wasn’t part of the plan becomes the thing you remember.

Perhaps that is the Mediterranean lesson I never knew I needed. Not that we should all move slowly, throw away our watches and spend our afternoons drinking coffee. I would last approximately three days. It is simply that not every worthwhile part of life needs to be productive, scheduled or efficient.

That was a surprisingly difficult lesson for an Austrian to learn. More than twenty years later, I’m apparently still learning it.

And somewhere out there in Malta, there may still be a plumber who thinks I was a very strange woman for expecting him at 9 am.

Mela. 😄

Want to experience a little of this Mediterranean life for yourself?

This October I am taking just 8 women 50+ to beautiful Gozo for 7 nights and 8 days of good food, hidden places, sea, walks, laughter and the wonderfully unhurried rhythm of island life.

12 - 19 October 2026 Gozo * 8 women only.

EXPLORE THE ART OF MEDITERRANEAN LIVING