The Holiday begins

10th April, we were up at 2am in order to leave at 02.45 for our drive to Heathrow Airport.  There were six of us in the car with five cases.  The journey was very quiet as you would expect for that time of day.  I drove to Andover and then Gary took over to take us in and onto the M25 and then the Airport.  The traffic picked up a bit on the M25 but we were early enough to miss most of it.

 

The flight was very good and the boys seemed to really enjoy it.  It took 2 hours fifty minutes with a very small amount of turbulence.  I had assistance to get through the Airport and so it was quite easy.  Gary had gone off to pick up the hire car and we only had to wait about ten minutes for him to arrive.  After a short 3 mile drive we soon arrived at our villa.  Plenty of space with five bedrooms and six bathrooms.  Left me with the boys while they went off to pick up my scooter and get some shopping.

 

11th April 2025 - Today we were both quite late out of bed as we were both very tired.  After a late breakfast we went out to sit by the pool.  Both boys were already in the pool and Gary was just going in.  He jumped in and then said something like "Oh  my goodness it's very cold".  I got in and swam a few lengths,  it was very exhilarating.  

 

After mid-day we drove down to St Thomas where we had lunch in a place called Jacobs Brew.  After a slow walk along the sea front we made our way back to the villa to enjoy the pool once again.

We enjoyed a nice Bar-b-cue and then had a quiet evening playing pool.  Early night to bed as we intend an early start to medina.

12th April 2025

 

I had a really bad night, could not lie in any position without being in severe pain. I recognised the pain was coming from my kidneys and was because i had not been drinking enough.So that  I did not keep Leigh awake all night I slept in the spare room.

Bright and early this morning we all went into Medina the Quiet walled city. It felt very strange, almost as if we had travelled back in time, but then we would spot the odd car parked and be brought back to the present.
When we left medina we went to Mosta. This is quite a large settltement with a huge church in the middle. This church is the most intricately building I have ever seen. You can see in the picture the detail and it is like this all over.
Probably its real claim to fame was that in 1942 four german bombs were dropped on the church while more than 300 people were inside. All four bombs failed to explode. A replica of one of the bombs is on show in the church.

On our return to the villa i went upstairs to rest for a couple of hours. Downstairs again by three I then joined everyone around the pool. Gary and Chrissie then went out for a couple of hours for quality time.

13th April 2025 Marsaxlokk

So this morning we decided to make our way to Marsaxlokk to spend some time looking at the market.  The parking was very difficult and we had to drive around all the streets but in the end found a space in a car park right beside the water.  The market seemed smaller than we remembered but Leigh still managed to spend a lot of money including  38 euros on six cakes.This works out as an eye watering £5:51 per cake.

 

Gary had booked a table for lunch, it was very nice and Leigh had chicken Gnocchi, this was very brave of her as she does not usually try new things.  Then she went on to have a lotus flower cocktail. This was another brave act as the alcohol used is white rum which she was sure she would not like.  She surprised herself by liking it.  While down in the Market we got talking to a lovely Maltese lady who remembered when the UK ran the island.  It was nice to talk about the old Navy days.

We had a lovely morning and then went back to the villa for a quiet relaxing time.  

 

This girl has the best smile ever and I will never get tired of seeing it.  I am not sure where this cat lives but he visits us every day.  She is the sweetest cat and likes nothing more than a good tickle.  As you can see from the picture she is not afraid of people and climbed on my lap.  

 

 

 

14th April 2025 Valletta 

This was Jacob tucking into his favourite English breakfast.  He seems determined to have them from all around the island perhaps to do some sort of comparrison.  He certainly enjoyed this one.

We drove in and managed to find a parking space near the bus station.  This area had not changed a lot but the buses were new.  Malta has very cleverly managed to retain the old look with the outside of the buildings while updating the inside.  It's clear a lot of work has been done to refresh the look of the buildings.  Leigh and I sat for a drawing to be done in charcoals, the artist produced a very clever caricature.  She even managed to capture my bad eye which surprised me.

This morning as its our last day we drove over to bugibba where we parked up and had our breakfast.  It was very good, with Jacob and myself being the only two to have a full english.  It was near here that we had hired the scooter so intended to return later to do just that.  Potentially it could have been a very nice place but there appeared to be a huge amount of building work taking place

Our next stop was Mellieha Bay which was not as busy as we thought it might be.  The boys wanted to go in the sea but had not thought to bring there bathing costumes.  The both ended up going in with the day time clothes on. Jacob swam in his shorts and Henry wore track suit bottoms.  They had a great time.

 

 

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Once back at the villa we ate tea and then the boys went in the pool.  They had a great time playing and stayed at least an hour.  The week has gone by very quickly and tomorrow we shall be flying home.