My wife and I adore the Maltese Islands. We tied the knot there in July last year. My grandmother Rose was Maltese and the youngest of 19 children. Hence, I've a huge collection of second and third cousins and regularly keep in touch with a few of them. They're all hard working successful professional people and amongst them we can boast a couple of doctors, both Olympic swimmers, a teacher and a successful restaurateur. My cousin's sister-in-law is even married to the Maltese prime minister! I told my father-in-law this fact a few years ago, although I now wish I hadn't as every other sentence he uttered in Malta was: "Tell them you know the prime minister." He applied this to every possible scenario from trying to get an upgrade on our AirMalta flights to seeking a better table when we dined out. He even tried it on to get cheaper nappies at a local supermarket!! "Can you knock one Euro off the price? My son-in-law's 'related' to your prime minister." I'm not and I've never met Lawrence Gonzi, but I'm told he's a very nice man indeed.
I must admit to being a little worried about taking Joe-Joe on a three-and-a-half hour flight. Let's face it, there's not much you can do if a four-month-old baby decides he's going to scream for the entire journey. I took precautions though and pre-booked our seats at Air Malta's website. I was set for a front row aisle seat and my wife and her parents were booked in the row behind. I figured that if he was going to scream then I'd put in some ear plugs and wear a sleep mask and let them deal with it. You can imagine my horror then as I boarded the flight to find that my online seat booking had been overwritten by the check-in staff and I was now sitting in the middle of the plane with Joe-Joe potentially on my lap! I managed to get round this by exchanging my boarding ticket with the Dragon's and insisting she sat with my wife and baby in the row next to mine. It worked a treat and I wasn't troubled for the entire flight as Joe-Joe was a perfect first-time flyer. He made up for it on the flight home though when my disgruntled wife, unhappy that I'd "had it too easy", decided that rather then pass our sleeping son on to her father who was sitting in the seat next to her, she'd walk down two rows and plonk him on my lap, waking him up in the process. He screamed for a good 25 minutes until I managed to placate him with a hastily prepared bottle of powdered milk. We were short of ready made Aptamil baby milk after security at Heathrow made me drink one of our precious cartons of breast milk substitute (for the record it was vile and would never make it on to my morning cornflakes), plus, believe it or not, they don't sell cartoned Aptamil in Malta!!
As always, our holiday in Malta was wonderful. The weather was mainly sunny, with just one day of rain and the temperature in the high 70s all week. Apart from a dire first night in our rented villa in Mellieha, Joe-Joe slept well and with George and the Dragon eager to dote on their grandson at every available opportunity, I managed to read my first book in four months! ('The Ghost of White Hart Lane - In Search of My Father The Football Hero' by Rob White and Julie Welch - a good read for all Spurs fans.)
The highlight of my holiday was a lovely morning spent at Paradise Bay. It's usually full of Italians and foreign students during the height of summer, but we had it virtually to ourselves. The water was warm and Joe-Joe enjoyed his first dip in the Med. Wish I was back there!
I must admit to being a little worried about taking Joe-Joe on a three-and-a-half hour flight. Let's face it, there's not much you can do if a four-month-old baby decides he's going to scream for the entire journey. I took precautions though and pre-booked our seats at Air Malta's website. I was set for a front row aisle seat and my wife and her parents were booked in the row behind. I figured that if he was going to scream then I'd put in some ear plugs and wear a sleep mask and let them deal with it. You can imagine my horror then as I boarded the flight to find that my online seat booking had been overwritten by the check-in staff and I was now sitting in the middle of the plane with Joe-Joe potentially on my lap! I managed to get round this by exchanging my boarding ticket with the Dragon's and insisting she sat with my wife and baby in the row next to mine. It worked a treat and I wasn't troubled for the entire flight as Joe-Joe was a perfect first-time flyer. He made up for it on the flight home though when my disgruntled wife, unhappy that I'd "had it too easy", decided that rather then pass our sleeping son on to her father who was sitting in the seat next to her, she'd walk down two rows and plonk him on my lap, waking him up in the process. He screamed for a good 25 minutes until I managed to placate him with a hastily prepared bottle of powdered milk. We were short of ready made Aptamil baby milk after security at Heathrow made me drink one of our precious cartons of breast milk substitute (for the record it was vile and would never make it on to my morning cornflakes), plus, believe it or not, they don't sell cartoned Aptamil in Malta!!
As always, our holiday in Malta was wonderful. The weather was mainly sunny, with just one day of rain and the temperature in the high 70s all week. Apart from a dire first night in our rented villa in Mellieha, Joe-Joe slept well and with George and the Dragon eager to dote on their grandson at every available opportunity, I managed to read my first book in four months! ('The Ghost of White Hart Lane - In Search of My Father The Football Hero' by Rob White and Julie Welch - a good read for all Spurs fans.)
The highlight of my holiday was a lovely morning spent at Paradise Bay. It's usually full of Italians and foreign students during the height of summer, but we had it virtually to ourselves. The water was warm and Joe-Joe enjoyed his first dip in the Med. Wish I was back there!
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| Having a paddle at Paradise Bay |
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| Taking his first dip in the Med |
