Easter Break

The Easter break was a great little 4 day weekend. weather was fantastic, sunny and warm. We decided to spend most of the weekend with the dogs. We took them out and played their favourite game, football!

We are convinced Spike was a footballer in a former life as he absolutely loves his ball. If you kick the ball up in the air he will header it a couple of times, sort of with his nose, rather than his head. Spike's first touch is also pretty good!

Chewy also loves his football, but would rather just carry the ball and run around rather than do the tricks and dribble.

The nets were up in the goals where TSFC play and the sports field also allows dogs, so we took them there.

It took them both a couple of times to realise that the ball doesn't go through the net, so going around to retrieve it doesn't work!

We took them some water as it was very hot and they were soon panting. It's pretty good exercise playing football with two dogs!

Sportsman's Evening

Andy and Jeff Winter

Us

On Friday the 20Th March, we attended a Sportsman's dinner in aid of raising some money for the Shropshire Alliance League at the Lord Hill Hotel.

The evening consisted of a dinner (obviously!), a guest speaker in the form of Jeff Winter a former Premier League Referee, a comedian called Danny Dalton, Irish Bingo and an auction of football memorabilia.

The evening started with dinner, vegetable soup to start, roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and vegetables for main and apple pie and custard for pudding. Quite a filling dinner, but very nice.

The guest speaker Jeff Winter then entertained us after dinner with some of his stories and experiences being a premier league referee. He was very funny and interesting.

The comedian started after a short interval and with a very risque joke, but very funny!

The league had also hired a very brave lady in my opinion! Her job was to model the the football memorabilia for the auction, with little else on!

Andy had managed to get two signed football shirts, Leicester City and Shrewsbury Town to donate to the auction.

After the auction, Jeff Winter finished off his talk and did a book signing. Andy bought one of his books, will he read it? That's debatable!

All in all the evening went very well, the league didn't raise as much as they had hoped, but it was their first evening they had hosted, so next time should be much better.

We enjoyed ourselves, it makes a nice change to do something different in the evening sometimes.

Farewell Malta

Andy and his favourite barman!

David chose a Tabasco based shot for him and Andy.......

.....Oh yes, they regretted it!

Claire chose a Bailey's based shot,

you would think it would be ok?

Nope!

All smiles again!

The biggest chair EVER!

We would like to finish this trip report with pictures of our various nights out in Malta. We met some interesting people and ate in some lovely restaurants. We like to buy souvenirs when we are away as a nice reminder of where we have been. From Malta we bought ourselves some Maltese glass, it comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes and various colours. We chose a large paperweight in a swirl of pretty blues.

We met an American couple one night out in St Paul's Bay, who were interesting to say the least! They entertained us with their tall stories about knowing Britney Spears very well amongst other famous American figures! Whether the stories were true or not, they were entertaining. The couple liked us so much, they even invited us to go stay with them in the states! They had drunk quite a lot, so I guess we won't be taking them up on their invitation as I could hazard a guess at, 1. they wouldn't remember us and 2. it would be pretty busy at their place as they invited a lot more people!

Coming up....

The next trip report will be about a long weekend in Milan, Andy and I took in November 2007 for Andy's birthday, but we won't start writing this until we get back from our trip to Crete, so expect it around the middle to end of May.

In the meantime (until we leave for Crete), we will be updating you on TSFC, a Sportsman's dinner we went to and the Easter break.

Valletta

All along we had decided on a visit to Valletta, but the day we went we did on the spur of the moment. We get very restless sometimes and just cannot sit by a pool all day, so this day we got in a taxi and headed for Valletta.

We we were dropped off just outside, you enter through the city gate. Driving is almost impossible in the city as there are many narrow streets and streets of stairs. We made our way to what could be said the main square. We took a drink just outside the Bibliotheca, a grand building, built in the late 18Th century. The building houses rare and priceless works, with a small section on display in the main hall. We also passed St John's Cathedral, which was absolutely packed with tourists, so we decided to visit the Palace of the Grand Masters. This was the official residence of the Grand Masters up until 1798 when it went on to become the home of Malta's parliament.

The Grand Masters were Knights who were given the islands by Charles V of Spain in 1530. The palace houses portraits of the Grand Masters and European monarchs, beautiful furniture and art. You can visit several rooms, including the small council chamber, the throne room, the hall of the ambassadors, the yellow state room and the armoury. At the entrance you are given a recording which is included in the entrance fee, it tells you the history and interesting information.

We found the armoury the most interesting as it houses armour, weaponry, etc...

It felt like a worthwhile visit.

After leaving the Palace, we hired a horse and carriage which took us on a tour of the city. This way you can visit at your leisure without being too overcome by the heat. The driver was very useful in his knowledge as well. We took in the city walls, the grand harbour, fort St Elmo, the gardens and the narrow streets.

Valletta is a very imposing city which still remained whole after intensive bombing during World War two, Malta experienced over 6000 tonnes of bombs falling in one month! In 1942, April 15Th, the people and the island of Malta were awarded the George Cross for gallantry by King George VI.

Valletta is a must when visiting this island.

The Blue Lagoon

We booked a cruise with Captain Morgan Cruises, this would include a leisurely sail to Comino Island to enjoy the Blue Lagoon and the Blue Grotto, a sight seeing opportunity of Malta from the sea, taking in places such as the Grand Harbour at Valletta and a lunch on board.

This trip would be very touristy, especially when reaching the Blue Lagoon. This could not be helped as it was August!

Comino is a very small island between Malta and Gozo, about 2.5km by 2km. There are no roads on the island which in turn would indicate no cars, there is one hotel which is only open during the summer months.

Diving, snorkeling and leisurely walks are the main activities of this island. It is best to bring your own food and drink, unless it is included in your cruise because otherwise you can only get food and drink at the hotel.

The island is a wildlife sanctuary, but is named after the cumin plant, which surprisingly, turns out to be very hard to find!

It seemed like a lifetime before we arrived at the lagoon. Although we had a pleasant cruise, the boat was packed so you were almost permanently in your seat. It was extremely hot and not all seats had shelter from the sun. The lunch was nice and we enjoyed as much as we liked.

Finally arriving at the Lagoon, we were offered a speed boat trip to the Grotto at an additional cost. We accepted and we have to say, it was definitely the right choice! The ride in the speed boat itself was absolutely fantastic! It was like being on a roller coaster and nobody could stop laughing! We were soaked to the skin and a fellow passenger just about managed to film us all with his camcorder (how the camcorder survived the soaking, I don't know!). The recording was hilarious!

The Grotto was interesting enough. The caves and coves were brilliant shades of purple and glistened when the sun caught reflection, very pretty. The waters were extremely clear, just unfortunate they were spoiled by the odd bit of rubbish that had been discarded.

Arriving back at the lagoon, we couldn't stop raving about the speedboat ride!

Fighting our way through the crowds, we managed to get down to the lagoon. Snorkel and underwater camera ready we made our way in.

I was slightly disappointed, yes the water was clear and a brilliant shade of turquoise, but I think the amount of people scared away the marine life. We settled on enjoying a bit of relaxation and some swimming.

Andy spotted some kids jumping off a pretty tall boat into the lagoon and decided it looked like fun! Hey, its good to just act like a kid sometimes, I think you enjoy some things better that way! The kids loved him!

To get into the water where we were, the rocks were quite sharp, obviously slippy, so due care and attention was in order. We spotted a child of about 3-4 years old trying to get in, no adult helping. The child was going to fall, so we assisted and led the child to a more shallow part near the sand and away from the rocks. Eventually, a parent called to the child, but made no effort to supervise. We kept one eye on the child as drowning is possible in the most shallow of waters.

We kept an eye on the time as there was no roll call for our ship and they did warn they would leave on time with or without you!

To avoid the crowds, we would suggest visiting outside of the popular months or stay at the hotel on Comino and visit the lagoon when everyone is gone.

We sailed with Captain Morgan Cruises, departing from Sliema Harbour. Included in the cruise was a pick-up and drop-off coach from our hotel, lunch, Comino and the Blue Lagoon and a cruise around the coast of Malta. The speed boat trip to the Blue Grotto, is an optional trip at an additional cost when you arrive at the lagoon.