Were up at the crack of dawn. Today weve got a long day of travelling, first from Gozo via the ferry back to Malta, and from there to Rome and then Athens where well be spending the night at the airport.
Its been ridiculously hot here the last few days and this morning feels as oppressive as ever. We put our bathers and towels out on the balcony to dry when we got back from the beach yesterday. Im not sure why we bothered; its so humid that they‘re still soaked this morning. It was almost impossible to cool down at the beach yesterday. It was only just cool enough to be refreshing in the water, and the sand was so hot that we had to sprint back to the shade of our umbrellas to stop our feet frying, and by then we were just as hot as we were before we went in the water. It was forty degrees in a few places in Malta yesterday which is apparently a bit unusual. A lot of of the locals weve spoken to have about the unrelenting heat, and telling us that theyre craving winter. We came to Europe
In yesterdays post I talked about Maltas dearth of bird life and its status as the most savagely place in Europe. Weve parked our car under a tree, and I think the countrys entire bird population must live in that very tree. I think I might have upset them with and theyve now decided to unload on us. And boy have they unloaded, several centimetres thick of unload. Its only after several solid minutes of windscreen wiping that we think we can see just enough to be able to drive off safely.
Issys cousin Nancy meets us at the Malta airport terminal for a tearful farewell. Ive got no personal links to Malta whatsoever other than via Issy, but the connection with her relatives is very strong and their hospitality has been wonderful, so much so that it does now somehow feel a bit like were leaving the safety of home.
Theres a grand piano in the Malta airport departure lounge (do they call them that anymore - plastic seats and not nearly enough of them for the number of guests - that doesnt really gel all that well with my visions of a lounge), and someone in the queue for our flight has decided to take a few minutes out from his duties to tickle the ivories. Hes very good, and even manages to generate some polite applause from the assembled multitude. Theres a grand piano in the Rome airport terminal as well, so maybe theres a trend developing here. I wonder why pianos? Maybe flutes might be a bit too easy to steal, and someone playing a violin badly is like listening to someone strangling a cat, so Im glad they havent gone with that option.that said the main players in Rome seem to be toddlers banging away on random keys, which now that I think of it probably makes a strangled cat sound quite melodic by comparison.
And while were on random subjects associated with air travel, Ive often wondered why so many passengers jump up out of their seats as if their lives depend on it as soon as the seatbelt sign goes off after their flight lands. Given the option, Im sure the vast majority of people in the world would chose sitting over standing. Yet here they are clambering to stand, when this will almost certainly not give them any advantage over their fellow passengers whove chosen to remain in their seats until its their turn to leave. Everyone still gets off in row order, so the most theyre going to gain is two or three places in the race, which will only amount to a few seconds. And what then? On most flights weve been on the baggage carousel doesnt start to do its thing until well after everybodys got off, so getting off first wont get you your baggage any quicker, so you wont get out of the airport any sooner than anyone else.
