Dartmoor didn’t start well. The rain, six hours ahead of forecast, thwarted the planned walk down a river gorge. The landscape was rolling hills but they weren’t moorland; farm fields, the odd sheep. Not that you could see them. Steep banks, tall hedges, driving down a funnel. The A road I followed South into the […]
Month: July 2018
Big man; big disappointment
Nothing starts your day quite like a family sized pot of coffee with your cooked breakfast. When I checked in I’d been asked what time I’d like breakfast, with the options being 8am or 9am. Going to bed well after midnight I’d been regretting signing up for an 8am start but the evening nap had […]
It Hurst to walk on shingles
Spandau Citadel, Mdina, batteries and forts at Valletta and Santa Maria’s Battery on Comino. July was a good month for cannon and fortifications. I hadn’t done anything in the UK though so today I fixed that. A three hour drive got me there at lunchtime, and I set out across the shingle under a blistering […]
Photograph Update
Just finished processing the photographs from the past two weeks away. Click here for photographs from Berlin. Click here for photographs from Malta.
Not travelling
Woken up at 6am by a cat. Went back to sleep. Woken up at 7am by a different cat. Went back to sleep. Woken up at 8am by the third cat. Both other cats asleep on the bed with me. Now being snored at by the cat lying on me. Sometimes it’s nice to be […]
Melting in Midlands
Malta shrinks at night, the lack of traffic shortening journey times. There’s nothing to see, dimly lit streets and the frequent churches, towers lit from the outside, sometimes a red light on top. The minibus had arrived early, a call from reception telling me they’d gone without me, would be back in five minutes. I […]
Melting in Mosta
I woke up, eyelids heavy, forced them open. An angled glance at my watch suggested a good sleep, my latest start of the trip. I braved the hotel shower, its hot tap a binary switch cunningly disguised as a dial. When hot it overpowers the cold flow so a shower needs to be quick, starting […]
Melting in Mgarr
Tuesdays in Bugibba is “Refresh your gas cannisters day”. Every bar and restaurant in the square and around my hotel uses several of them, and it takes several hours to pull new ones off the truck, take them to the various customers, return the old ones. I know this because they started at around 7am. […]
Melting in Mdina
Malta is weird. Half the people living here speak broken English. The other half apparently are English. Chatted to a man this morning, his skin an advert for a melanoma charity. He said he was born in Malta but I knew he hadn’t always lived here. Raw Brummie can’t be faked. Who would want to? […]
Melting in Malta
When I booked my flight to Malta I went hunting online for hotels and found a nice cheap one nowhere near the airport. Being a seasoned traveller I checked the transport options. Malta doesn’t have a railway but does have plentiful bus services, so I decided I’d be fine. Sure, it’d be an hour’s ride, […]