For many people, a holiday starts with their first pint in the airport, no matter what time of day or night that may be. For me, it begins with the worry about missing the flights. Titchy and I were taking separate trips with our own kids this summer and so I was flying without my support network but with my kids, my brother and my mum.
The kids and I decided to stay up all night for this one, we needed to be at the airport for 4am, and the plan was to sleep on the plane and then work out the ‘over-tired’ issue when we got to Malta. We would learn to regret that by tea time!
We met up in the airport and plodded slowly through customs and check in, in a zombie state. The only people that should be up at this time of the day are milkmen and burglars. Despite this, there were still a few hundred folks in the airport bar getting lashed. Never change Newcastle, never change.
Through tired eyes, we continued onto the plane and my age caught up with me. There are few things more upsetting for a father than knowing that the correct thing to do is to allow your kids to have the window seats and sit in the aisle.
The flight passed without too much excitement and I was so excited for my break that even Jess Glynne shouting about holding my hand didn’t upset me too much. Cheers for that Jet2 by the way.
This was a proper holiday; when you stepped out of the plane to walk down the steps you were hit by the heat of the Maltese morning. Despite Brexit, there were no issues at passport control and we were soon in the smart and incredibly clean airport lined with fish tanks and dopey looking fish.
My Mum had decided that a private transfer would be a fancy little upgrade and so we skipped the bus queue and made our way to the car park and into a minibus. I was facing the wrong way on a foldy down seat being thrown left and right like I was flying down the Cresta Run. I can only imagine what the standard transfer tourists were doing, I assume they were in a truck with chickens and goats next to them. I say assume, I mean hoped.
In between getting buffered left, right and centre, I was able to snatch views out of the window. My initial impressions were that it all looked a bit like we were in the middle of a tour around an abandoned roman fort. All of the walls and roads seemed to be falling apart and in need of a little bit of a tidy up.
Our hotel was in Saint Paul’s Bay, the db San Antonio, which was a former fishing village that had been fed and watered until it turned into a sprawling tourist spot. The hotel reception was busy and spotlessly clean and we were very quickly directed to our rooms. We were on the sixth floor with lovely views over the pool, the sea and the mountains on the other side of the bay.
The sleepless night had caught up with us and so we had a quick Nana-nap before meeting up for a spot of lunch. We were all inclusive and this was the first of around three thousand meals that we would have in the coming week. More of that to come.
The afternoon was spent getting used to our surroundings. We checked out the pools, the bars, the entertainment options and then we had a little wander around the streets surrounding the hotel to work out where we were.
We were in the middle of a street filled with tat shops with the only break in play being a sports bar filled with middle aged men wearing too much polyester. Charming.
We were all a little tired still and so we retired to our rooms to refresh, nap and get ready for the evening. We met at the indoor bar that was slightly colder than a blast furnace, but it wasn’t too far off. Add in to that the 100 kids high on churros and soft drinks dancing on the stage and it didn’t last long for us.
We moved outside with the old folks and topped up on the free bar. There was a chap there running the bar called Binod. He was a lovely fella who could not have worked harder to keep us topped up with booze. We chatted with him and, it turns out, he was from Nepal.
It felt like the end of a tiring day and, in many ways, a false start to the holiday as we were all too tired to do much. Tomorrow would be the start of a new, and fully refreshed, day.
Itchy Feet and Titchy Feet 