In my official capacity – and therefore using my official car and driver – I have to open a ‘heritage’ day at a remote hamlet, Ħal-Siġar, up north. I take Angelika and our baby daughter Annabelle with me for the ride.

The so-called ‘heritage’ day turns out to be one big rip-off – nasty ‘home-made’ pickles and home-bottled olive oil, olives and ġbejniet at ludicrous prices. The only interesting facet was a demonstration of goat slaughtering. However, this made Angelika break out in a rash and a request to return home immediately. So the day wasn’t a complete wash-out.

Monday

There are a lot of long faces in parliament these days, in the wake of the rescinded pay rises for ministers and parliamentary secretaries. But at least it’s given rise to some fairly predictable banter, in the vein of, “So what are you going to have to give up: the farmhouse in Għarb or the Lamborghini?”

Tuesday

With the increasing possibility of a free vote on the divorce issue, today a colleague sidles up to me in the House and asks which way I intend to vote. I reply ambiguously that I shall vote – naturally – for what I believe to be morally right.

He sighs: “So I take it you’ll be against then.” Not necessarily. He raises his eyebrows: “Huh, I should have known you’d sit firmly on the fence.”

No, no… not at all. I shall simply wait to see which way the most influential members of our party are going to vote – and follow accordingly.

Wednesday

My ego initially gets quite a boost today. I am telephoned by the boss of a prominent advertising agency who says: “Onorevoli, my client is looking for a young, good-looking, go-ahead politician to feature in print ads for his product and he immediately thought of you.”

I am, of course flattered and game… until he tells me what the product is. And no, I don’t think it’s a terribly good idea for me to be the face of, ahem, Bogbright lavatory paper.

Thursday

Like the rest of my colleagues, my minister is still in deep mourning for his aborted pay rise. Today, he tells me: “It’s not the money, you understand, or the loss of the ski lodge in Klosters, or the apartment in Miami, or even the beach house in Barbados. It’s Glorianne I feel sorry for.”

Glorianne? His wife’s name is Moira.

Oh, right.

Friday

Morning: Coffee at Cordina’s with an old friend from law school – who also happens to be the opposition spokesperson for telling it like it isn’t.

He says: “I hear they’ve given you a new office – in the ministry’s yard. Don’t rough it up too much will you old chap; if your lot go on as they are doing, I will almost certainly be moving in there after the next election.”

I tell him not to count his chickens and he surprisingly replies: “True, we still have to work out how to hide away Dracula and Motormouth. I mean… can you imagine Dracula as a minister for God’s sake?”

My involuntary shudder is, I hope, an eloquent reply.

Saturday

I am, for the moment, very much off-the-hook at home and with the kunjata. My dear – or should that be expensive – wife, Angelika informs me that she is pregnant again. I don’t know whether to be elated or… At least it should keep mum-in-law off my back for the best part of a year.

But today when she visits us and I overhear Angelika telling her the news, she grunts and replies: “Are you absolutely certain it’s his? Because I’m sure this one will be a boy and I’m not at all certain that he’s capable of – well you know...”

What is the appropriate word for the pre-meditated brutal murder of a mother-in-law? I rather like… shrewicide.