The Storm Before the Calm: Chapter 11

January blues.

 

I’m sure a lot of people have them. Taking down the colourful decorations, returning to the office routine, putting Mariah Carey back to hypersleep. It is what it is.

 

My problem is that my post-festive blues can last three months or even more. Work-related reporting deadlines start to loom, and Malta’s humid cold starts to kick in where you feel it in your bones. No matter what you do you just feel kind of wet all the time. I’ve nothing against it but Carnival week doesn’t really do much for me.

 

When you add an anxiety-induced numbness to that because you feel stuck in a rut week in, week out, then you just sort of lose motivation and go on autopilot really. I thought buying a house was supposed to at least have some element of fun to it.

 

Connie started skimming through some Għajnsielem listings on Facebook. She casually showed me some pictures of one and said she messaged the agent asking for some basic information. “Let’s just give it a look, we’ve nothing to lose”.

 

A bit of hilarity ensued. After we agreed on a date and time with the agent, we completely forgot about the appointment. He called on the day telling us he was there and we had to profusely apologise and reschedule.

 

Another Home Alone reference.* Second movie, parents wake up late, look at each other and go “We did it again!”. Cut us some slack, we have two kids dominating our lives. So when he called us the second time we lied and told him we were on our way, dropped everything and made it there in less than 10 minutes.

 

We entered the property. It wasn’t new but it was clearly being worked on, with tools and rubble strewn everywhere. The layout seemed nice enough, but it looked like a lot of work. I didn’t have the mental capacity at the time to comprehend the scale of the task and weigh it against what we’d have to do once the house we did sign up for was ready in shell form. We thanked the agent for his time and made our way back.

 

It was around this time – late February 2023 – when we saw some rustling. Cement foundations, steel rods, cement bricks. Just enough to make out the outlines.

 

But the extension only had a month left on it.

A week later, a certain article (concerning a different developer and a different location) made its way onto the home page of the Times of Malta website.

 

 

*And it won’t be the last one, either!