Anna Gallo has been living in Malta for four years having specialised and qualified in Italy in environmental impact and green building. Last year, Anna decided to collect old keyboards and invent something innovative with them. She designs jewellery embedding the keyboard letters in rings, cufflinks, brooches and earrings.

Ctrl + N is the official brand of her creations. With the label, Anna wants to show that there is a clear relationship between recycling and re-invention, and that there can be a new, inherent value in an object – creative and aesthetic in the case of her jewellery – that can resonate with the owner-wearer. She calls her work creative recycling: it builds, invents, creates and recreates anew from items that we throw away.

Her jewellery is valued not for its high net worth but more in terms of the symbolic, conceptual and artistic value is bestows. ”It’s not about wearing something expensive, but about wearing something truly unique; the fruit of a creative process that liberates us if you like from the mentality of a throw-away society”, Anna explains.

We spoke to Anna to dig deeper into Ctrl + N, which is already making waves in alternative design circles here and overseas. But as we find out, Anna isn’t stopping at a line of accessories. She has other creative recycling projects in the making…

How was the idea born?
I have always been fascinated by the relationship between the complete object and its parts. I love taking things apart to look at them as individual pieces and to see the parts as complete items in their own right.

I believe that the real value of fragments of things lies in their reinterpretation. Thanks to this process of re-reading the objects around us, it is possible to come up with ideas for them that are very different from their role as constituent parts of a whole object. I like the challenge of reinterpreting individual items taken out of their regular context.

And computer keys hold a kind of individual magic; one that doesn’t weaken even when they are grouped together.

When did you come up with the idea?
It started in 2011 by chance really. I heard that the US Embassy was transferring from Floriana to its new site in Ta’ Qali and thought to myself that it must be throwing out a lot of stuff in the move. I phoned up and managed to get five computer keyboards. To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to do with them! But, I just couldn’t get my head around throwing them away.

So, I began taking them apart and looking at them from a different perspective as they lay in pieces. The idea of creating some sort of accessories got me excited and I started to experiment. The feedback I had spurred me on and my work has been gradually gaining traction. I’ve been invited to the ‘Festival del Riciclo’ in Milan this summer. I get calls almost daily from companies, factories, schools, ministries and individuals who are keen to pass on to me their old keyboards, content to be contributing to an innovative recycling initiative.

Why the name Ctrl + N?
When you press those two keys at the same time, you open another window. The message is therefore this: with Ctrl + N, you open a new window, a new perspective, a new way of seeing things around you and you are also placing a value on the themes of recycling and creativity.

What type of people wear your creations?
I would say that my clients are generally people who aren’t afraid to risk, to push the boundaries. People who like irony and don’t take themselves seriously, but who also feel themselves very much in tune the times. They live a use and throw-away life on the one hand, but also try to do their bit to think green and recycle.

What I particularly love is sensing the moment in which they understand the philosophy behind my pieces. The exact moment in which they move from viewing the jewellery superficially to finding its irony and value as a deconstructed part reintepreted into something new with its own value and lifeblood. The moment they turn around and smile!

I have fun seeing the why clients choose certain keys over others. Some choose their initials, but others choose keys that are spirited communication to friends, loved-ones or family. For instance, ‘page up’ and ‘page down’, ‘enter’ and ‘esc’ are popular as coded meanings. I had one Italian friend who followed her American boyfriend to the States but was homesick for Italy. She chose ‘Break’ and ‘Home’ on earrings and ‘Italic’ for a ring. She said: “Anna, the next time I go to the US and want to return home to Italy, I’ll tell my fiance’, Marco ‘Break’, I want to go to my ‘Italic’ ‘Home’”.

One of the most emotional uses of my jewellery was when a man chose a ring with ‘asterix’ as a parody of a diamond and as a coded way to ask his girlfriend to get engaged. When I saw just how much importance and personal value was being given to the keys, I decided to set the keys in silver mounts, with re-cycled silver that has been worked by hand.

What next?
Thanks to my innovative way of recycling, I’ve won a grant from the Italian Foreign Affairs Ministry in collaboration with the University for a project I am developing called ‘Paper Sustainability in Malta’.

I am creating a new line of green stationery products reusing old advertising and billboard posters to create diaries, block notes, sketches books, notepads for conferences and placemats for restaurant and wine bars. I’ve been collecting old adverts for some time now and am in the process of working up designs for packaging, logos and so on.

And your motto?
The only thing you can’t recycle is the wasted time!

For more on Anna Gallo and her creative work see:

Ctrl + N
Facebook
Contact Anna on: +356 79231818

With luck, we’ll have seen the last of those murky, blustery Saharan sand storms with messy spattering rain. But not necessarily. Though thankfully, we certainly won’t be in for those floods that the UK and other parts of northern Europe are having as we write. What is it generally like in May? Good to know if you’re heading to Malta for a late spring holiday to enjoy the last days of green countryside before the scorched, parched earth of summer. Here, our weather man Tony Muscat of it-Temp.com gives the general outlook for May in Malta. Tony provides our daily weather – see sidebar below – from his own sophisticated home weather station.

May weather…

May is a great time of year in Malta. This is when rainfall diminishes to a minimal 10mm (compare that to 61mm in Manchester), and there is a comfortably warm average daytime temperature of 24C. The countryside will still be green just before its starts to get scorched brown in the summer sun, and one can still stroll around in a T-shirt very comfortably.

There will be an average of 10 hours of sunshine a day during the month of May, enabling one to fill up ones days with outdoor activities from early morning till late. In fact, at 3,000 hours, Malta has one of the highest number of hours of sunshine a year in Europe. This is nearly double the number when compared to other northern European countries. London, for example, has 1,461 hours of sunshine a year.

Even the most popular beaches will still be quiet as Maltese will not venture into the sea with a temperature of 18C. Tourists may be more brave though.

Photo: courtesy Susan Attard.

It’s a cross between flea market and car boot sale. You’ll have to jostle past the jumble sale stalls with hoards of women picking over second-hand clothing. But wend your way up and down the rows of stall holders, who’ve set up pitch at 5am to get pole position, and you’ll find some of the quirkiest, weirdest, kitschiest objects you’ll have ever stumbled upon. Need a whole jazz band from the southern USA (in statuette form)? Or some religious memorabilia? Of course, you’ll also find some rare vintage pieces like those 1960s retro lamps you’ve always wanted. Not to mention army surplus that’s great for the kids’ dressing-up box.

Here are just some of the items that caught our eye. Make a date with Birgu’s flea market next week and you’re bound to go back home with something you never knew you wanted! Happy browsing…

The stall holder knew the value of these tin toys! No bargains here…

Something for that Sunday afternoon read perhaps?

Let’s not forget the religious side to Sunday…and Oxo beckoning the Sunday lunch.

From peace to war…we came across gas masks and German pilot’s goggles too.

Bring out the collector in you…

Perfect for the bedside table.

Something rather unnerving about the look of this long-forgotten doll. But the Kenwoods might be useful.

Stetson man! The people are just as fascinating as the finds!

Directions: See Google map for venue.

Shaping up naturally

Malta has never been known for its greenery.  Any visitor flying to the Islands from mid May to early October, will see a below a rocky landscape shimmering white in the heat.  

It’s thought that even in prehistory, at the time of the last temple builders, the islands were largely afforested.  When the Knights of St John arrived in Malta in 1530, they reported that the islands were ‘…merely a rock of soft sandstone…scarcely covered with more than three or four feet of earth…no running water, nor even wells….wood was so scarce it was sold by the pound…’.  In all, they found Malta ‘…extremely disagreeable – indeed almost insupportable – particularly in summer.’  

But, despite seeing Malta as temporary home, they ended up here for 260 years!  However bereft of wood, soil and water or hot the islands were, the Knights had to adapt and make the best of it.  And that’s pretty much the attitude of the plants that make the Maltese Islands their home.  

On the short 300 meter coastline walk between Ghajn Tuffieha and Golden Bays – where the photo above was shot – I counted 28 different types of plant pushing valiantly up through the garrigue.  March to May are the best months to enjoy Malta’s all too brief floral display as spring rushes at breakneck speed into summer.   When I see their parched stems in early June, I feel it’s a miracle these plants survive.  They’ve many more months to go without water, yet will burst into life again come autumn, which is like a second spring.  

Now, in our true spring, the plants are magnificent, and stand for survival of this rock, despite the odds stacked against it.  I’ve yet to find a great pocket guide to the fauna and flora of Malta, along the lines of the ‘Observer Book of ….’ series that my parents had in the ’60s and which used to accompany us on holidays to far-flung parts of the British countryside.  When I do, I’ll update this post with its title.  

In the meantime, here are just some of the common, colourful species to spot this time of year, and make your walks in Malta’s countryside more informed.

The English weed (Oxalis cernua): in profusion now, this lemon yellow plant was said to have been introduced to Malta in 1806 by an Englishwoman.  It’s pretty, but prolific and considered a weed.  

Borage (Borrago officinalis): a bright blue flower on hairy stems and leaves., it grows in verges and rough garrigue.

Crown daisy (Chrysanthemum coronarium): the epitomy of spring.  It makes a real statement in golden yellow and standing up to 3 ft tall.

Anemone (A. coronaria): small is beautiful. Find it in sheltered valleys.

Crimson Corn Flag (Gladiolus segetum): pinkish-purple, it’s another rough ground grower, but despite being common, it’s a real spring statement. Squeeze the flower, as my son does, and they look like gaping mouths!

Red Snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus): another tall plant that is hard to miss for its colour and display.

Scarlet Corn Poppy (Papaver rhoeas): almost as common here as in Tuscany, this bright spark loves crop fields. 

Purple Clover (Hedysarium coronarium): not a native, but grown as fodder.  It carpets fields and, along with the English Weed, is a colour you see from the air.

Later on, towards May, you’ll find the caper in flower in crevices. It has enormous white-pink feathery flowers with a heady scent.  Spot it in the bastions of Mdina.  Its buds get hoovered off for pickling, so it’s about the only place you’ll see it flower! Another to look for in May, but on the clifftops, is the native Maltese thyme, flowering a deep purple.  Don’t pick it though, as it’s protected!  Instead, brush it with a hand and enjoy the strong scent.  It has no domestic garden rival!   

Colourful walking!

Photo: Prickly Pears – Alex Grech.
Photo main: snail & lily (not a wild plant, we know! – Liz Ayling

Like most people of my generation, I abhorred the old City Gate. Like most, on the days I have to get into Valletta, I try and dodge the army of teenagers waving their clipboards, trying to get me to betray my mobile service provider for its rival – and gaze to my right. To the steel and cement and now the stone cladding, to the men with hard hats. I think – someone must be recording how we feel, as a young nation, about the destruction of a cultural symbol of our past and the birth of new ones for future generations.

For a moment, I try and blank out that what is being built is primarily for our political representatives, for the regime, for the men in suits who crave power.  This new parliament is merely a fresh facade, a veneer on the old.  Behind its walls, the system will go on just as it always has, hidden away from whatever devices we use to watch and record the Phoenix-like rise of the new parliament.  The brand new functional offices and chamber won’t sweep away the cultural baggage that people of my generation have to deal with – a perennial mistrust of representation. Whatever comfort the high percentage turnout at national elections brings to our political elite, a review of a particular chapter of Jon Mitchell’s book is a sanguine reminder of where we place them in our order of things.

I try and ignore the fact that I will never again, in my lifetime, see the exposed bastion walls of St James Cavalier, like I can, right now.  I try and ignore the Opera House, decapitated, but promised a future under starlight.  I try and blank out the flats to my left. And I keep walking, suspending judgement.  Soon, I think, the structures will take shape. The bridge will take form. The fortress will feel fortress-like again. We will have institutionalised another break with the past. We will have another symbol for our future. We will move on to what’s next.

And yet, I wonder. Whether till I die, I will have to be selective about what I can look at openly, critically, in Malta – and what I have to blank out to be able to get through the day. What to applaud and marvel at, in the name of progress – and what to shrug at, because that is the way it is always going to be.

Our culture is as stubborn as the structures we are erecting at City Gate. No amount of physical destruction can wipe out where we came from, any more than a veneer of architectural change and progress in the name of development can mask what really needs to be changed. I am starting to understand, late, that there is much in this young country’s history that still needs to be absorbed before the new shiny iPad generation can really be entrusted to break with the past.

I suspect that it will take more than the men with the hard hats to take my island to the place I long for it to be.  More than  a couple of thousand Facebook ‘likes’ on another sublime propaganda site.

Like everyone of my generation, I am running out of time to do anything about it.

Still and clip from Bettina Hutschek’s documentary “City Gate – a diary of demolition“

Officially, Easter week starts on Palm Sunday on 1 April and runs to Easter Sunday a week later.  But anyone living in Malta knows that things hot up the week before; the Friday a week before Good Friday is called id-Duluri, or the feast of our Lady Of Sorrow (id-Duluri) which sees crowds slowly and mournfully follow the statue of ‘Our Lady’ in solemn procession. Valletta has the most notable id-Duluri procession.

The key days of Easter are otherwise the regular ones, but note that Malta doesn’t have a public holiday on Easter Monday.

Maundy Thursday (day before Good Friday)
This day commemorates the Last Supper and is the start of the mourning. You’ll find lots of parishes create representations of the Last Supper and/or the entire Easter story in model form, rather like Christmas crib displays. It’s a tradition on this day for people to visit them as they do their tour round the islands of ‘Altars of Repose’; ideally in seven different churches or chapels. These Altars are elaborately dressed up for the occasion with white flowers – the Mdina Cathedral altar is particularly bedecked. Some parishes will stop their bells on Holy Thursday to replace the regular ringing with a Ċuqqlajta, a clattering wooden ‘gong’ which sounds like a giant football rattle. Zebbug and Siggiewi tend to do this, as do other more tradition-loving or rural parishes.

Girgenti Torchlit Procession on Maundy Thursday – this special event starts off in Siggiewi village square at 8pm and leads on by torchlight out of the village up to Girgenti hill to the Laferla Cross. The last part of the route is a rough steep path along which you’ll find the Stations of the Cross depicted and often scout troops and youth groups enacting tableaux. You jostle in the half dark, miss your footing at times and find people surging downhill contraflow, with baby buggies and more! It certainly is an ‘event’!

Good Friday
Good Friday is the official mourning day so no mass is held though people may go to church to kiss the cross at the time Christ died (3pm). The day is bell-free and silent! But it is the big day of processions. And we mean big. Malta has some spectacular, lengthy and large processions involving casts of hundreds. Some have become main tourist attractions in recent years, with public address systems broadcasting a commentary in several languages. Zebbug in Malta is renowned for its extravagant, almost-passion play style procession. As is Xaghra in Gozo.

The main ones see people dressed as Romans, Jewish priests, disciples, other Biblical figures and country folk like shepherds. You’ll also see people dressed in white cloaks and pointed hoods, covered from head to toe – these are the faceless penitents and are often seen carrying crosses or dragging chains on their feet. The procession usually files out of the church interspersed with men bearing statues and scenes depicting the ‘Passion of Our Lord’. Plan to get to your chosen procession early (they start mid-late afternoon) for a pole position view and plan to stay late if you want to see it all! Processions take place in:

Malta: Birgu (Vittoriosa), Bormla (Senglea), Ghaxaq, Luqa, Mosta, Naxxar, Paola, Qormi, Rabat, Senglea, Valletta, Żebbuġ (Città Rohan) and Żejtun.

Gozo: Nadur, Victoria (St. George Basilica and St Maria Cathedral), Nadur, Xewkija, Qala, Xaghra and Żebbuġ.

We’ll have more details nearer Easter on what’s on where in our events pages.

Easter Sunday

This is a day in total contrast to all that has gone before in Holy Week. A day of celebration of the Risen Christ. The churches are open and special mass takes place – with bells resumed! It’s a day then for family as people flock home to their lavish lunches and, as in much of Christian Europe, the giving of chocolate eggs. Malta has its special Easter cakes – Figolli – which feature all Easter but are often taken as gifts on this day.

The most notable spectacle on Easter Sunday is the celebration of the Risen Christ (L-Irxoxt) in Birgu (Vittoriosa). This sees a group of men (hopefully fit and strong!) make a mad dash uphill bearing what looks like a very heavy statue of the Ascending Christ. It’s a popular event in Malta and draws the tourists too. But do stand well back when the statue rushes up hill to the Square as I saw someone lean forward to take a photo and get nasty surprise, and a near miss from the bearers’ pole.

Photo: courtesy Peter Grima, KnowMalta.

A Haunting Past

Malta today is the product of its past, a small slice of land in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea that was always open to all voyagers as a place of refuge and settlement. Today, it seems that most of the Maltese do not remember much of this. In Malta, migrants are set aside in discourse that uses the pronouns ‘them’ and ‘us’ and some here perceive their arrival as a threat.

Why? The Maltese have forgotten that their ancestors were once immigrants; the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Normans, French and British, among others, who came to rule the Islands. The Maltese must remember that many of them have forefathers who were migrants, too, and who were not always welcome in the countries they emigrated to in search of a better life.

In the 1830’s, French expansion in North Africa meant that what was formerly a large region closed for centuries to Europeans was now wide open to migration. Thousands of Maltese settlers left their shores for Algeria, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.  In addition, other smaller groups of Maltese emigrated and settled in Corfu,Trapani, Constantinople, Smyrna, Gibraltar, and Marseilles among others.

Leaving for Australia

Following World War II, Malta was physically and economically ruined, and the Islands were overwhelmed with poverty at a time which saw an immense spike in the birth rate. The Maltese Islands became overpopulated, and unemployment was very high. As a result, thousands of Maltese emigrated to the United States, Canada, Australia and England.

When Maltese immigrants arrived in Australia, many found themselves facing discrimination. The arriving Maltese considered themselves as British subjects but nevertheless they were banned from working for several state projects at that time, most notably the construction of the Australian railroad.

John Gunn, the then South Australian Premier (1924-1926), regarded the Maltese as “uninvited immigrants”. Even though the Maltese migrants were technically British and had served in the war in the defence of the Allies, they were not given the same work rights as their British counterparts. Maltese immigrants who settled in North Africa also faced adversity with the rise of nationalism in these countries as they sought independence from their European imperialists. Foreigners, such as the Maltese, with a different culture, religion and way of life were seen as intruders.

A New Era

As the decades rolled on, the Maltese economy recovered and life on the Islands became more hospitable and prosperous. Migration began to slow, and the European standard of living began to take hold. With Malta’s joining the European Union in 2004, a new wave of migration has since begun. Many young Maltese graduates have begun to migrate to a number of European countries such as Luxembourg, France and Belgium in search of more promising employment (mostly in EU institutions) than can be found in Malta.  Even after decades of economic recovery and European integration, Maltese today still find reasons to escape their homeland for a better life which is now more possible with a Europe without borders after the Schengen Agreement.

In recent years, we’ve seen irregular migrants arrive on our shores – erroneously and often ubiquitously labelled ‘boat people’.  In many ways, their reasons for migration are no different from those driving the waves of Maltese migrants of previous decades.

David Carabott & Tarishi (from Tanzania)

The Maltese cannot turn a blind eye to the humanitarian crises that exist today in the African continent. These people are fleeing political unrest and religious and ethnic persecution and come in search of jobs, safety, protection and food (the basics that man should expect to live in dignity) as well as ideals that we take for granted: democracy and basic freedoms – much the same thing that the Maltese left their land for throughout the centuries.

Europeans must remember that hate speech does not make these challenges disappear: it only throws fuel on the fire and contributes nothing to our understanding of the issues of migration and that migrants  face. Our ancestors left our islands for a better quality of life and faced immense struggles in their new homes.  Can we not learn from their lessons as we deal with the arrival of migrants on our shores? Aren’t we, in essence, ‘all in the same boat’?

About the Author

David Carabott, back in 2008, as part of his first degree, conducted ethnographic field work at the Marsa Open Centre for migrants, under the supervision of Dr Mark Anthony Falzon; head of the Sociology Department of the University of Malta.

davecarb@onvol.net

Photo: (top) courtesy of Andrew Galea Debono

Malta Migration Museum – this is in the first phases of being set up at the Emigrants Commission.

How much did you know of the job market in Malta before arriving and did it meet or differ from your expectations when you got down to serious job hunting?

All I knew beforehand was that with Malta an EU state, I wouldn’t need a work permit or visa to work here as an EU national. Apart from that, I knew very little about the job situation here.  As I never had a real problem finding a job elsewhere, I felt confident (or should I say, I hoped) I would find a similar situation in Malta.

I have to admit that the job hunting in Malta took longer than I expected. I knew the the economic crisis was quite severe in Europe but also read that Malta was in a better situation compared with Greece, Spain or Ireland for example. In reality, it took me a month and a half to find a job in Malta.

Perhaps that’s not unusual, but it was slightly longer than any job hunting I’d been through before. I think it took that time because of some misunderstandings I faced along the way.  Quite a few times, I was told that people would get back to me with further details about potential collaboration but then I never heard from them. This made the job hunting a little more difficult to deal with.

What resources did you use to job hunt?

I mainly used the Internet and read newspapers to have a feeling for what was going on, who was active, which firms were communicating and so on.  ETC (the government-run Employment & Training Commission) was not much of a resource for my field.

Did you feel the market was sophisticated enough to meet your personal expectations for career and salary ?

If you are looking for a job in the i-gaming sector, then Malta would probably be a great place. From my own experience, Malta being such a small island with such an artistic potential, great projects are numerous. When it comes to make a living out of it, however, things are far harder. The market is small and working opportunities  in the arts are lacking. Salaries are low compared to Northern Europe and cost of living not as cheap as it used to be. The great lifestyle  does compensate for the lack of professional opportunities.

How flexible did you need to be in your search?

As a traveler, one needs to be flexible. It is not unusual to start from scratch even with a long CV. I feel I was lucky to find a job which met my professional and personal interests. But again, being a complete stranger in Malta, starting a new job definitely means one would have to accept starting out all over again.

Was Maltese a sticking point?

Not being able to speak the local language is definitely a disadvantage. However, overall, I did not feel it was such a big problem.

Was there a ‘cultural’ learning curve to go through? Working in Malta not being the same as holidaying here.

Mainly I felt that somehow people do not trust you because you have experience in your field. As a close-knit place, people tend to know people on the island, so arriving as a newcomer, without recommendations, one has to face a first step of getting to know the new world around and gain trust, at a somewhat slow pace.

Also, social behaviour can be different from that of other European countries. Malta can be quite traditional and conservative in certain areas, although I feel that ambition, innovation and imagination are also here and playing a far larger role in the dynamics of the islands.

Some employers might shy away from employing foreigners as they feel that they might leave the islands sooner rather than later. Was this an issue that came up in your job interviews? 

This is true but not specific to Malta. Most employers would consider this and they would be right to point it out. However, I felt most people in Malta would not really understand why one would be leaving the island. It was raised during my own interviews. In other countries, employers would be looking for experienced worker to serve a specific goal in their companies. In Malta, I felt it was more of a commitment to join a team, sort of a ‘new-family’ feeling that was expected.

What overall advice would you give would-be expats looking for work in Malta?

I would personally recommend people to come and live in Malta. The island is beautiful and summers very promising. For Irish/Spanish/Greek citizens it can also be a get-away from a very difficult economic situation. As for other countries, one should come understanding that Malta is not operating on the same level of expectations. You live and work in Malta because you enjoy the lifestyle, your job, your friends; not to save money, nor to expect an ascendant curve in your career!

Photo: courtesy of Sebastian de Gange

The ‘day’ is a virtual hang-out, if you like, of figolli makers worldwide (and not all have Maltese roots I hear) as well as being this year a physical gathering in Melbourne on 24 March at the Maltese Community Centre.

Nanette tells us to ‘turn off our iPhones and shut down our MacBooks [wishful thinking!] and then head into the kitchen with our kids, nieces, nephews, nannas and nunnus and have a bonding session with some dough and hopefully pass on a few Maltese culinary traditions whilst we’re at it.’  If you do get baking, be sure to take photos and/or videos and post on the World Figolli Day Pinterest. Later, on Easter Monday, Nanette and renowned Melbourne chef Shane Delia judge the best Maltese and best Australian based figolla. The winners will receive a signed copy of Shane’s latest book Maha.

More details are here on World Figolli Day on Facebook.  Here’s Nanette’s Figolli recipe, if you don’t have your own family favourite. The Flickr group is here. We’ll add the Pinterest link soon.

So what do you think, do you want to help bring figolli back in vogue and get the family elbow deep in dough! Nothing too strenuous is involved remember, just some flour, eggs, sugar and almonds and hopefully a whole lot of fun.

Photos: courtesy Nanette Johnson.

I checked back to what we said about March 2010 and found that it kicked off with some of the lowest recorded night temperatures for that month. With luck, we’ve just broken those kind of records in February. And so March 2012, all hopes are pinned on you panning out as spring in the Med should – warm, welcoming and a precursor of summer.

Our monthly weather watch is brought to us by Tony Muscat who runs it-temp.com, his one-man, incredibly sophisticated home weather station in Mellieha. Here’s this month’s general round up but don’t blame us if you experience March in Malta differently!

March madness
March is the month when the rainfall starts to diminish and the days start to get warmer. It will still be chilly in the evening at around 12 degrees Celsius, occasionally dipping as low as 8 degrees C, but the days can be pleasant with up to 7 hours of sunshine providing an average daytime temperature of 18 degrees Celsius, possibly going up to 24 degrees Celsius.

Even if it gets this warm by day, consider carefully before jumping into the Mediterranean, as the sea temperature is as low as it gets at 15 degrees Celsius.

The rains in January and February will have turned the countryside green, so combined with the pleasant daytime temperatures, it makes it good for country walks in light clothing by day, but do bring jumpers and coats for use at night.