Malta. Part Seven.

On the second day of our holiday to Malta, another hotel guest told me, during our conversation, “There is a TKMaxx in Malta.” Of course I was thrilled to hear such good news. After much thought, back in the hotel bedroom, I said, to Meghan, “I won’t be going to the TKMaxx here in Malta,” Meghan asked, “Why not?” I replied, “Because I have only bought 80 euros with me, and there are more important things to spend my money on, than to go to TKMaxx.” Wise Meghan said, “You have to go and take a picture of the shop,” She went on, “It would be 2 of your favourite things.” I said, “OK.” In my mind, I thought, it would be impossible to go to any TKMaxx and not go inside it! I decided, I would spend, 5 euros and no more. For then I would be able to say, “I bought this from TKMaxx IN Malta.”

Two days later, Meghan said to me, “I have looked at Google, and there isn’t a TKMaxx in Malta, they all closed down.” Gutted I didn’t believe her, and looked for myself, and true there wasn’t a TKMaxx in Malta. I was only sad for a few seconds, but sad I was. For how could I be sad IN Malta! I couldn’t believe I was actually here, living the dream, it hadn’t sunk in. I would have been very happy to stay in the hotel by the pool, eating and drinking, in the very hot sun, what more did I need? I didn’t need anything else, not even TKMaxx.

We love cats. We have 6 cats at home, we did have 7 but Gray was killed by a hit and run, outside our home.

Meghan wanted us to go to the Cat Village. We went to the local shop, there she bought two diffident flavours of Dreamies, “cats would do anything for Dreamies.” That is the advert slogan, and our cats would even stand on their two back legs to have them, but only for a second.

We paid 5 euros, that was for both of us, to go on the bus to St Julian’s Cat Village. It took us 50 minutes to get there. When we arrived, we didn’t see any cats, just some teddies and a donation box, with a note attached to the box, some dry cat food in plastic dishes and a small dog kennel type home. I took a picture. We were disappointed.

Meghan, like me, she doesn’t give up. She set her map up on her phone, I left her to it, as she is my guide. Round the corner, we saw two cats and a goose! They were not homeless, I took pictures and videos as Meghan fed the cats some Dreamies.

Then we walked slowly, enjoying the beautiful views, stopping to occasionally to take pictures, as we would not be going this way again. We saw a beautiful Church in St. Julian’s but it was closed, I took pictures of it, and while we were there, other tourists came too.

We walked until we arrived at Sliema, for this was where the Cat Village had moved to. The actual place was called, Independent Gardens. It was a beautiful place; it had a giant statue of a blue cat with pink clouds on. It was peaceful. It had brightly coloured benches of red, blue, and yellow. There was a large scratching post, perfect for all cats. There were units, with cat size cubby holes for lots of cats to go in at night. Then we saw a cat! Meghan gave the very tame cat a Dreamie, there was another little girl there, with her mum, she had something better than Dreamies, it was something like a slim meaty stick, she gave that to the cat. We saw 3 other cats they were dotted about, camouflaged in the semi little bushes, far too hot to come out, for any food. They were not hungry, which was good to know. People had left various bags of dry cat food. There were also bottles of water, and clean water in dishes.

After we returned home to England, Meghan saw a place, in Malta, where there were too many cats, they would have made me nervous when she showed me the video. I am glad we didn’t go there, it was like an epidemic.