This morning was not so hot. When I left for Valletta a strengthening breeze from a more-or-less northerly direction, stirred up the sea and created white-caps, yet the sky remained mostly blue until about 11am, when things began to change. A wispy veil of stratus materialised out of nowhere and crept across the sky and, though the sun still shone through, the colour of the sea changed from sapphire to pale blue-grey. The jolly white-caps of the morning became something altogether more threatening.
By the time I returned from Valletta at 4pm the sun had gone and the spray from the waves as they crashed against the esplanade showered anyone foolish enough to get too close to the edge. Plumes of spray like horses’ manes streamed behind the incoming waves, now a dark green-grey colour, as they raced towards the breakwater and crashed over it and into the usually sheltered waters of the marina, setting tall yacht masts swaying in great arcs.
I once sailed from Malta to Syracuse (Sicily) in a storm. A whole lot of jolly good fun when you’re a child and all the adults around you are sick as dogs. Not so much fun, I suspect, for the “Star of Malta” insurers, for the deck cargo was washed clean overboard. I must ask cousin Charles if he remembers that journey, for he and Dorothy travelled with my parents and myself on that occasion, way back in 1954.
This morning I spent a fruitful couple of hours in the Archaeological Museum in Republic Street. Malta’s history goes way back, with the inner core building in the stone temple complex at Hagar Qim dated conservatively at 10,000 years old. How do you get your head around such numbers?