Malta Was Supposed to Be an Escape

Riding on the train from Norwich to Gatwick felt more like an escape from my problems rather than taking a pleasant short break. You see, during my February skin check the trainee dermatologist had flagged a lesion on my chest as a possible melanoma. I didn't believe it - it looked far more like a BCC - but her mannerisms and confidence and insistence were more than enough to send me into another round of anxiety and what ifs. In March, the lesion was excised by an empathetic and talented surgeon from Sri Lanka, who said she'd send off the sample for analysis. Another six to eight-week wait - more than enough time to imagine the worst - lay ahead to find out the pathology result. From my perspective, if the derm was right, it couldn't be a new melanoma primary (it just didn't have the features) but could be a melanoma metastasis potentially upstaging me to a far more serious medical situation. Anyway, in the midst of this new despair, I fled to the airport with a thousand thoughts racing through my mind and a relative sense of hopelessness about the road ahead.

Of course, Malta was lovely. After a late-night arrival, I started my time on the island at Iniala Valetta for an indulgent pancake and green juice breakfast before wandering around the edge of the city along the coast then re-entering near the dramatic St Paul's Cathedral. Eventually, I ended up at Legligin Restaurant for a truly indulgent two-hour lunch. Six courses of home-cooked Maltese and Mediterranean specialities based on what they can get each day at the market. Everything tasted so good here. Just before dessert, I got a phone call, which startled me (it was an unknown number so probably the hospital calling with the biopsy result) and I didn't manage to pick it up. Unfortunately, it ended the peace of the restaurant for me and I walked home trying to calculate whether this call meant a good or a bad result (sometimes, early results, which this would have been, equate to a melanoma diagnosis). I didn't really enjoy the rest of the day but did manage to take a 2-Euro Gondola trip to the other side of the bay before retiring early with a large bottle of store-bought juice.

Day two kicked off with breakfast at the Castille Hotel - my rustic choice of lodging - offering dramatic views over the city and a decent buffet-style breakfast. As soon as I'd devoured enough to get through the day, I walked down to the shoreline to catch the fast craft to Gozo Island. It was Gozo's charms which quickly captured my heart far more than Valletta. What an island! From its signature stone walls to its unspoilt rural fields and coastal settlements, it felt like somewhere I could definitely live if only real surfable waves broke here. 

After getting dropped off on the eastern fringes of fabulous Gozo, I stumbled upon salt pans, coastal gorges and dramatically high cliffs. I launched the drone near the cliffs and captured some amazing footage of me sitting right near the edge while the sea crashed into the rocks below. Despite being at a low point in my life once again, I didn't think about throwing myself over the edge. Instead, I decided to ditch the bus as my chosen form of transport for my own two feet and hiked the final 5km back to the port. In the middle of the hike, my phone rang again and this time I managed to pick it up. It was the hospital, but they didn't have my biopsy result after all. It was just about a menial admin matter. To celebrate the simple fact it wasn't bad news, I spent the evening at the rooftop restaurant of the Valletta Hotel, where I indulged in a swordfish pasta meal and watched the sun drift down over Valletta's timeless skyline. 

My trip to Malta was almost over before it began. Once again, catastrophising had got me nowhere except taking away something from what's left of my life. The next day, I flew back to London and to the Cromer life which contained me at this moment in time. You'd have thought I'd learnt by now that the worst doesn't always happen, but instead my imagined future had stolen a little slice of the present.