We continued our trek north to Valencia for our flight to Malta, but we made a slight detour to Almoradi to meet our new house sit host, and leave the bulk of our luggage so it wouldn’t have to sit in the car at the airport, or risk being stolen.
It was a Sunday when we left Sierra Nevada and it happened to be the running of the final Formula One race for the season so I was pretty keen on watching it. I needed a cafe or bar with Wi-Fi to stream the race so I asked Linda to look on the GPS for a sizeable town on our way that was reachable within half an hour. She spotted ‘Guadix’ and it became a race for us to get there in time which, we did but I had to drive around the town a couple of times to find somewhere suitable. All we could find open was a restaurant that was a little too upmarket for what I was hoping for, but it had to do. We asked the waiter for a table for two and the Wi-Fi password. We must have been an odd sight, most of the patrons were well dressed families enjoying a Sunday lunch when this strange couple barge in speaking a foreign language wearing snow gear and setting up an iPad on the table while donning a large pair of headphones. Linda embarrassingly took care of the ordering and I’m sure she was hoping for a mild race because ‘loud cheering’ would have been just too much!
Linda spent the time during the race looking up what Guadix had to offer and as it turned out, it’s quite an interesting place. Many of the buildings are carved into the hills which provides natural insulation from the harsh cold winters and scorching summers. We were so impressed with this we drove around the town to check it out thoroughly. It was late afternoon by now and we didn’t want to drive any further so Linda found us an old farmhouse on the Internet that was dug into the side of a hill. It was incredibly late notice but a woman met us at the four bedroom house, showed us how everything worked, including the fireplace, so we had a comfortable night in by the open fire, then drove on to Almoradi the next day.
Guardix 
Guardix cave houses
Our new hosts, Jackie and Mark were from the UK but had lived in Spain for some time. Their elderly dogs, Skye and Buddie were well behaved which was just as well because they live in a small apartment close to the main plaza. Jackie had already flown out ahead so we only got to meet Mark who would be joining Jackie in India when we returned from Malta to look after Skye and Buddie for a month.
Poor old Buddie suffered from dementia as well as arthritis and was on a host of medications including cannabis oil, which is legal and readily available in Spain. He was a really good natured dog and apparently his condition has improved since he had been put on the cannabis oil. Skye was not as old and is just a fun loving, funny dog that was happier sitting in front of a heater than anything else but they both loved their long walks, which we did three times a day.
We enjoyed a smooth two hour drive to Valencia airport which was surprisingly smaller than I expected. We were able to walk to the terminal from the long term car park and our Ryanair flight was faultless, arriving in Malta on time.
We were trying new accommodation, this time in Floriana, just outside the capital of Valletta. It was not as expensive as staying in the centre but just as practical. The check in process was fully automated, we just punched in a code provided in our booking confirmation and the front door opened. Once inside the foyer there was a key safe where we once again entered the provided code to access the apartment key. The term ‘apartment’ is used loosely as the overall space was not much larger that the box we got the key from. It was a nice old house with typical Maltese balconies but it had been divided into individual apartments – a few too many, we thought! The space was so tight that the shower was in the same room as the kitchen – or the kitchen sink and microwave were in the same room as the shower. Whichever way you look at it, it was small! But we had things to do and we only needed a convenient place to sleep.
Our kitchen-bathroom 
View from Floriana
Our first port of call was the citizenship office. If I can take you back to our previous visit two months earlier, we were told that the citizenship application was approved but the documents – despite us issuing numerous concerns and asking that this does happen, were sent to Australia where we had originally lodged the application. We were left with no time to get a passport or residence card before we flew back to Spain!
This time we had all bases covered. We had more paperwork than we wanted to carry but we weren’t going to let them beat us. We were applying for a passport and paying for the express service but just in case that went foul we continued our plight to obtain a residence card. It wasn’t all smooth sailing and we were pushed from department to department. I’m not going to detail it all because I’m sure you will have as much trouble believing it as we did! We had to call on the assistance of a gentleman we met earlier in the piece. Even though it didn’t relate directly to his department he used his expertise and experience gained working outside the government environment to diplomatically persuade other ‘Department Heads’ to use some common sense and to stop putting ridiculous barriers in front of us.
We were in and out of the office just about every day of our seven day stay and on the day before we were due to fly out, Linda emerged from an office with a Maltese passport in hand and a huge smile on her face – Phew!
It wasn’t all frustration. We moved out of the shoebox in Floriana midweek and found a really nice place in Valletta enjoying some nice meals including a celebratory dinner at our favorite restaurant, Palazzo Preca.
We even managed a quick visit to my Aunty, at a care facility, on the way to the airport and then it was back to Valencia where we were staying in the harbour area for a couple of nights before going back to Almoradi.
Hooray, finally I’m legal 
Auntie Mary 
Old Maltese bus