The word is a very exciting place

 That first day home after being away on holiday is horrible. Getting the suitcase unpacked, washing everything, getting uniform ready for work. Bleugh. Its almost like I need another holiday to recover from the first day back at work! I'd popped into town for some bits, and when I was walking home I discovered these three ducks in the park. Bearing in mind there's no pond there, only a small water fountain the students are always tipping washing up liquid in, it seemed an odd place to see them. But they were happily strolling across the park on thier way somewhere. Shame I didnt have any food with me!  We also came back just in time to see my Amaryllis flower, and what a beauty! Three flowers off the one stem, and all in this gorgeous crimson colour. Really brightened up the conservatory, especially as not much else had been starting to flower yet. But then it was early March, so I guess that's normal.  We also had a lovely day down the beach too, it was nice to be somew...

 It was our final day on Malta, and yet again I was asking the question, where did that time go? There's no way our week here could be already coming to an end. There must have been a mistake! I pondered the issues with time vanishimg whilst on holiday, while on the bus to Clapham Junction, the largest collection of cart ruts in Malta, named so because to one explorer, it reminded him of the train tracks in London, just by Clapham Junction. Clapham Junction is one of the busiest train stations in Europe, with over two thousand trains passing through each day, so it's understandable there is a lot of tracks that cross cross each other. And thats the same here for the cart ruts.  It's a mystery quite how and when the cart ruts were made, and in fact very little is known about them. Theories include that they are paths from where carts being used to transport stone overtime have caused the grooves, other's think they are a form of drainage. Whatever they were used for, the...

 Interestingly, I think that may be the longest title I've ever done for a blog post, but I wasn't quite sure what else to call it. Better to be a long title so you know what you're getting yourselves in for, then a short title that someone sues me for misleading them about the content of the blog post. Or something like that anyway. I will just say, one of the things I love about being on holiday with James is that he is very good at balancing and planning what we want to to do. He wanted to visit the aquarium, I wanted to visit the Cart ruts and the salt pans, and somehow, he planned a day that combined the two which minimised the time spent travelling. He is very good like that. He worked out which bus got us from Valletta to to the National Aquarium in St Pauls Bay, then a bus to Salina for the afternoon, before then planning the next bus to take us to Sliema for dinner, before heading back to Valletta and our apartment for the night. Sometimes I think he would be bette...

Just before I begin this post, I just wanted to say a massive thankyou to everyone that visits & reads my blog. I saw that I have officially passed 10,000 views for the blog since I started, many years ago! It was a wonderful number to see, and I just want to really thank everyone for visiting, and bearing with me while I try to catch up. I know I'm massively far behind still, but this gives me the drive and encouragement to continue to write, post and share my life & journeys with you. Many thanks, and best regards to you all!  Our exploration of Malta continued, by heading out to Tarxian. Those of you hoping to see pictures in the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, you will be sorely disappointed. Pictures are not allowed inside, but we couldn't get tickets. There's only 80 tickets released each day, and even as I check now, it's over a month before there's any available tickets. It's such a shame, but I understand that with such an important and notable site, vis...