Valentines Day Love

I must admit - I did forget Valentines Day.

Thankfully my hubby did not and so I woke up this morning with a bunch of red roses on my bed and a trail of little love notes all over the place - in the shower, in the fridge etc.

How cute is that???

Malta

Well Malta has not changed ! Still its bureaucratic permit preoccupied self!

First bit of "welcome to malta" - the airport trolley dispenser. Everywhere in the world you get your money back when you return the trolley. Not here my friend. You paid 2 Euro's, but you only get back 1 :-)

I managed to do the required test for becoming a "Range Conducting Officer" so we can run shooting training here if needs be in future.

We have run some courses in Malta and though frustrating given the Maltese penchant for moving the goal posts on anything they can make a quick buck on - we can run courses here.

We also like that it has the best weather in the world and that's no lie given that we left snow and sleet and arrived here to 20-degree mild T- Shirt bliss mid-European Winter!

The view from the flat sucked big time!

The public transport is great though driving is scary, in a bus you are in the biggest vehicle on the road so it is all good.

It is a peaceful and boring safe little corner of Europe close enough to go and ski or visit the cultural centers of Europe.

The fact that they drive on the left and speak English in Malta - although both of those  are said with a pinch of salt - makes it a bit like SA.

I have researched the kids education costs here especially University and it is not too bad. 

We are also looking at renting a flat to have a place to stay when in Europe and also for the kids to stay if they attend University here.

Whirlwind of the UK

Hotels: All around London!

Jeepers what a whirlwind 72 hours. The last 3 days we had meetings all around London and so we spent every night at a new hotel, lugging our baggage in and out. What an exhausting process.

We had a meeting with a Graduate of ours who is now the Clinical Director of a 400 vehicle strong Ambulance Service - they have been providing quite a bit of employment for other Graduates and so it was interesting to have a look at their operations and finally put some faces to people we've only been communicating with via email.

Mini Response Car used for Beach Events

Monday was also the day we met with QualSafe Awards, a new kid on the block, who have developed new pre-hospital care qualifications to take over from the ones which have now been discontinued by another organisation. 

Good news is that QualSafe seems to be more open and relevant so we're going to give it a go and see how their programs work out. Translated: Mel will be spending the next few weeks stuck behind her computer working these awards into our current Courses!

Tuesday was reserved for another Paramedic Graduate. He is the interim COO of a General Hospital (that's what he does, he fixes poor performing Hospitals) and they are keen to bring us in to upskill their current Emergency Staff. Exciting project and one I hope comes off the ground!

Last day we spent visiting David Halliwell. Now Dave is equally as crazy as Timm and his passion is EMS Education. We've known Dave for over 10 years now, he's come to SA a few times and every time we come together, sparks and ideas seem to fly.

His latest project is the building of a dedicated EMS training centre west of London and we went to see the start of it.

One big part of this will be "Immersive Training" i.e. training candidates in surroundings which resemble their future working environment - alongside a busy road at a car crash etc. The way they do is with high tech laser and beaming technology as well as sound and smell. You can smell the patients vomit! Yuck.

So we've had a few busy days and I'm looking forward to Malta

Visiting Paul and Jacky

We have spent the last 2 days with Paul, Jacky, Marcus and Darcy and what a great time we've had.

I haven't seen Jacky for close to 5 years and it was great to catch up and finally meet the kids - it's always been via Skype!

Time was spent with the family by just joining into their family routine, train tracks were built, marble runs were created and lots of snuggling!

Timm spent a bit of time with Marcus teaching him how to cycle, I promise he wasn't as grumpy as he looks on this photo

Training in Sweden

Hotel: Sky Hotel Apartments (Linköping, Sweden)

As I mentioned earlier, Timm and I were invited as guest lecturers on an Advanced Trauma Course to be held in Linköping, Sweden end of January

Our flight booking to Stockholm was via Oslo and to make matters worse, our Munich flight departed late which meant we ended up missing our connecting flight.... With all the resultant rebookings of flights and trains, final arrival time at our Hotel Bed was at 1:30am the next morning!!!

The Trauma Course was held for a group of specialised Military & Police operators, designed to prepare and revise the essential skills of arresting catastrophic bleeding and treating traumatic injuries. 

While only 3 days in duration, days were intense and long, barely enough time to have a shower in the morning and catch a few hours of sleep. Quite a culture shock for us having lazed around for the last few months :)

One thing I did enjoy was the enthusiasm of the students as well as the Instructors. We had experienced military & civilian medics as well as a few surgeons and the idea interchange and the learning curve (even for me) was great

Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures but we're off to the UK now for 5 days....

Gotta Love The Germans

Hotel: Ibis Budget Munich Airport

The only way I can describe today is the (sometimes) funny clash of cultures.

It started with breakfast with Timm selecting "Cafe Crema" on the machine, expecting Coffee with Cream. Not so, Cafe Crema is an old term for 'espresso'.

The Coffee without Cream

While at breakfast I had a bit of a blonde moment - trying to visit the bathroom I, for the life of me, couldn't open the damn door. It didn't seem to be locked but it just wouldn't open. Defeated I walked to the breakfast counter and enquired as to why the door wasn't opening. In typical dry german-ess, I was informed that it was a sliding door, and not a push door. Ooops!!!
Timm, having watched his wife embarrass herself, drily commented to the guy that clearly his "wife hadn't had enough breakfast if she was so weak that she couldn't open a restroom door".
Feeling insulted, the reply came back "Our breakfast is an open buffet, there should be no complaints that someone left hungry". He was decidedly unamused ......

Timm couldn't let it go (as usual) and had me draw pictures in German of the Inselaffen's attempt at a joke - he eventually got it and all was well in Deutschland again!

Escalator Protocol:

Everyone stand to the right, so people can pass on the left

At least we found a Laundromat (a real one ;-) and got some washing done. It was quite a dodgy one though with one guy blatantly stealing the toilet paper roll from the laundromat bathroom!!

Goodbye Felix & Unplanned Adventures

Stellplatz: Therme Erding

Do I have to get out of Bed?

Today is the day. Felix is being returned and for the first time in just over 6 months, Timm and I don't have our house on wheels anymore. I must admit it feels quite weird - I don't have to think about where we will be staying tomorrow or what interesting place we want to drive to!

We did, however, manage to sell the rest of our stuff to Roberto, a Spaniard who was here in Germany having just bought a Motorhome to take back home. Such is the life of the motorhome community.

Handover went well, Tobias (our rental agent) was great as always and they were happy with the condition of the vehicle so a big sigh of relief!

I must admit though that I did shed a tear or two....


But no time to pine. Back into Munich where I had booked a little studio flatlet with AirBnB for the weekend. Our Host met us, we got settled and Timm ended up watching german TV :-)

Then, at 8:30 pm (4 hours after checking in) our Host's Boyfriend phoned us, wanting to find out how many loads of washing we were planning on doing and that they had a sneaky suspicion we had rented the flat only to use it as a laundromat. Hugh???

I tried to (as politely as I could) tell the guy that if he had an objection to the washing machine / tumble dryer being used then he should not advertise it as such and then accuse his guests (who had barely moved in) of excessive use. This is not the way to deal with guests and I was keen to look for a new place.

Two minutes later he phoned back - as I was still absolutely fuming Timm answered. He eventually lost his cool when he got told that "Our host had bought and carried the tumble dryer up the stairs himself; that he had been to South Africa and he knows what goes on there and he didn't want his newborn infected with diseases!". Timm shared the wisdom with him that it would probably be a good idea for them to never meet .... Right. Time to move out.

He took Timm's advice and sent his girlfriend to fetch the keys - What a chicken!! (Timm's comment: Weichei!!)

So at 9 pm, we packed up our stuff and moved out again. We are now settled into a Holiday-Inn type of airport hotel and trying to get some sleep....