My last pre-work holiday

I already filled you all in on the first action-packed half of my latest trip to Malta. I left off talking about my trip on the Fernandez and how we got home at the end of the day slightly worse for wear, but keen for the evening ahead. We had planned to go down to Pembroke tennis ground to watch the final of the floodlit tournament that my aunt was taking part in. We ended up having quite a jolly time, playing with my twin cousins while their mother played tennis, having a chat with my cousin Bettina, who was planning to spend the night at my house, and eating a spicy pizza with a lovely bottle of wine. It reminded me of many nights spent in the same way and in the same place when I was much younger, and of course the end result was that it made me feel much younger!!

Sadly the next day was a day of running chores, and in particular, getting myself a new ID card. Thank god I have my mum's boyfriend to drive me around, otherwise I have no idea how I would have gotten to that ID office. It took forever as well and because I needed it urgently, I had to arrange to go pick it up a couple of days later. No fun.

Things certainly improved that evening though, as my mum had organised a girls' night out with her two best friends, myself, and one of their daughters. I suggested returning to Lava Lounge, where I had gone the week before, and it was a total hit!! Everyone ordered steak again, we shared a couple of bottles of wine, and then we merrily walked around the waterfront for a while, enjoying the banter. I think my mum should definitely go on more girls' nights - it keeps her young!!

Fort St Angelo, Grand Harbour

The next morning I had to get to Valletta super early as I had a meeting with a photographer from the Times of Malta. I won't go into that too much, as I'm planning a blog post about it in the near future, but it gave me a chance to go up to the Upper Barrakka Gardens, which is one of my favourite places in Malta. This is mostly because they have the most amazing view of Malta's Grand Harbour, and Fort St Angelo - just one of many forts found on the Maltese islands. I spent a very pleasant amount of time chatting to the photographer about all things astrophysics. He showed me some pictures that he and his cousin had taken of the night sky with Maltese features in the background - they were amazing. Apparently Mtahleb is the place to go in Malta if you want to take night sky photos without the glare of surrounding lights.

I spent the afternoon by the pool, working on my tan (actually, I spent a wee while napping in the lilo and seriously improved my tan). That evening we had made plans to go for a traditional fenkata with most of my family, at a place called the Farmer's Coop in Zebbiegh. This is somewhere we go quite often, because they do brilliant bebbuxxi (snails), bruschetta, fried rabbit and chips, and it's super cheap as well!! An additional bonus is that they have the space and patience to host my family, which that night amounted to 26 people....and we are not a quiet family!!!

One side of the family

It was a pretty great night. I was sitting next to one of my aunts who lives in Holland, and across from an uncle who is probably louder than the rest of the family put together, and who enjoys playing with his food. Luckily I have a strong stomach (not everyone appreciated his antics with the snails)!!! The banter was brilliant, we ate A LOT of rabbit, and it was such good fun seeing everyone.

The next day was another relaxing morning, and then mum took the afternoon off work so that we could go down to Exiles beach and meet up with the Dutch part of our family (Dutch through marriage). It was a pretty windy afternoon, which didn't make the beach overly pleasant (at least it's not a sandy beach), but we persevered and even spent some time in the quite rough sea. We eventually gave up and went for a Cisk at Exiles bar, and then mum and I set off in search of some fish for dinner (I was really craving fish).

Dinner that night was absolutely excellent. We had a huge meal of prawns in a garlic sauce, baked salmon and baked lampuka (which is a dolphin fish that is very traditional in Maltese cuisine). We also had some of my favourite Maltese bread, which we got especially from the baker on St Trophimus Street in Sliema. It's close to my grandmother's house, and I've been loving the bread from there my entire life. They have magic ovens!!!

Friday was my last day on the island, and mum took the day off work so that we could go to the beach. We met two of my aunts and their kids at Palm Beach, which is in Armier Bay. We've never been there before, but it was really lovely. We got sun beds right on the waterfront, the weather was amazing, and the sea was so blue and clear that it was absolute heaven. We started on the wine pretty early that day, and had lots of hobz biz-zejt in-between swimming loads. Lunch is included at that beach so we all went up for burgers and some more wine in the afternoon (the twins had chicken nuggets and I was very jealous). Needless to say, a couple of hours disappeared that afternoon when we got back from lunch and all fell asleep!! Oops...the twins weren't happy with us for that. As a punishment, myself and my cousin Edward were made to build a huge sandcastle fort...then the twins destroyed it!!! Sad face. My other cousin Alex had decided to abandon us by that point, and managed to get himself a job with the guys renting out the pedal boats, jet skis and banana boats - he did so well that he's managed to get work there for the rest of the holiday. Well done him!!

All too soon the sun went down and it was time to head home. I had already packed, so that evening was all about enjoying a glass of wine, eating some tasty ribs for dinner, then getting an early night because, early the next morning, my holiday was over and I was on a plane back to the UK. I'm so sad that holiday is over...I was not ready to leave!! Miss you Malta!!! xoxo