I had a slightly eventful journey down here......firstly the bloody expensive ticket that normally waits for me at a desk in Malta airport was only a reservation, and hadn't been paid for.



So I coughed £m1985.34 up for just the SINGLE journey to N'Djamena, business class.
That's a $6150 price tag or £3000+ sterling!!!

Which will take me some time to get back.....it seems that it had been paid for in Houston, but that fact (ie. the Ticket number etc) hadn't trickled down to Malta through the Air France partnerships!


It was fairly uneventful through the usual security mess of Malpensa, and then I checked in the Sofitel in Paris - courtesy of Air France, as I had an onward flight.
Later in the Novotel in N'Djamena, I found that I'd left a really good shirt in this hotel, when I was packing......but they'll send it on to my UK address...

Business class was full of "UN/ UNESCO" people flying down to N'Djamena....they are becoming more frequent nowadays!
There were some delays in going down to Kome on the lunchtime plane, as it was in Douala instead of N'Djamena ........ finally I arrived in the office in the drilling camp at 6pm.....

That's almost exactly 2 1/2 days after setting off from Qala.

For my last week in Gozo I wanted to finally get a scuba diving PADI license. I moved in to the San Andrea Hotel at Xlendi, on the Sunday night, to start lessons with the affable Rudi, of the St. Andrew's Diving school the next day.

The rooms were very clean, small and adequate, with great views of the bay.....and 10 metres from the Dive shop. The TV had no English channels (due to temporary satellite problems), but the staff were excellent and tried to help as much as possible.
http://www.hotelsanandrea.com/

Despite the very tight neoprene suit that I had to borrow, I learned a lot and enjoyed it. Having completed half of my diving exercises and more than half of my written work; I managed to get a 'barotrauma' on the last dive.

My nose bled, and my ears didn't 'pop' or equalise. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001064.htm
So that was the end of diving for a few days, and as I was flying five days later I went to see Patricia, my doctor, and she passed me on to Hermann the ENT specialist. And he medicated me & explained the engineering of an ear!!


But Xlendi has wonderful swimming as you are enclosed by the valley.
Back in late November, my best friend Tony Lloyd flew in for a 30 hour visit....and a glorious swim!!
And we meet up with the very lovely Maryann and Mariella, who congratulate us on being able to swim at our age!

Seen here on 24th November : Water temperature 18-19°C, land temperature 22°C.
He came in to Malta from Zagreb (he is the MP for central Manchester, UK, and specialises in international affairs, especially chasing down war criminals) via Milan late Friday night.

We had dinner at the Grand, and the next day we did the tourist sites:

Calypso's cave above Ramala Bay....supposedly where brave Ulysses was wrecked and spent 7 years.

The Gjigantia stone circle was a must as it is supposed to be the oldest erection in the world.....c. 6000 years old.

Many other places were included, such as St Ignatius who has his bones interred in the little church above Hondoq. This church also has ancient graffiti from the visiting-rampaging corsairs.

After our one hour swim in Xlendi, we went to the Citadel in Victoria, had lunch at Maji, the Labour Party headquarters in It-Toqq, and when we bumped in to Doris there, we had a guided tour of the 'Main Square' restaurant thrown in.

Now well on the way down Saturday's slippery slope we headed to Gleneagles in Mgarr and had a few scoops there.

Finally we went home and changed and ate at the "D bar" in Qala, before a 4am get-up and departure!!

Aye, swimming in Xlendi is pretty good, and you can find some good people & decent food down there nowadays!!

When we came back from Sicily, my brother Chris & his wife Sue were in Qala, visiting their new house. I threw them and a few friends a big dinner party at Maji's.

My doctors Robert and Patricia, my pharmacist Michael & wife Frances were there, together with Mark the hairdresser with his good friend Johnathan.

Vanessa and Denise were on there own as Jason was serving us, and D's heart-throb, James, was in the UK.

Arabella (Vanessa's sister) was invited to bring the new boy-friend Rene; she looked lovely, but he turned out to have poor social graces!

Kevin and Mary-Jane were there also, having their normal quiet fun time!

But generally we had a wonderful time; aided by a dozen bottles of pink champagne, half a dozen bottles of Pinotage plus a special five-course menu that Jason and Chef Joseph concocted for us.

I was everywhere.......enjoying good food, wine & company....as always.

After the New Year

After the New Year's partying we did some business and paid some bills....and generally chilled out.

Here I am on the bike I bought for Tony's use in Gozo.

And a ride up to the lower regions of Nadur, rewards you with a pretty good view...and a bit of a sweat.

We then shot off to Sicily (Taormina) for a week of shopping, eating, drinking & walking.

From the Corso Umberto (where we stayed in the Hotel Isobella) we zig-zagged up the roads of the small city for a couple of hours. There is a "Castello" & church that straddle the hill-top above the town, and just below them a restaurant with this glorious view of Mt. Etna.

A few glasses of Prosecco & some hand-made pasta, watching the white puffs venting above the snows of the distant volcano, and we were ready to go down.


600 sloping steps and twenty minutes later, we were back to our start point!





But we enjoyed all the exercise...and felt that we deserved our over-indulgences in the restaurants.

I think that this means that I am "bristling".

But I wasn't. Jean enjoyed the shopping (picking up some boots, a coat & some fancy tights for New York).

I was seduced in to buying 10 pairs of long socks!

Swimming 1st January

After the swims....we came home & started chopping up smoked salmon & fois gras for a lunchtime party with Frank & Betty and their daughter Karen & son-in-law Fred.

Here are Fred & Karen basking in the early afternoon winter sun.

It was so hot on that afternoon, Betty had to move out of the sun!!

January 1st at 11:45am it was like swimming in chamagne at18 deg C.

Jean was so jealous, that she came in the water in her underwear