No that doesn't stand for rock and roll nor even running and ranting. It actually stands for rest and relaxation. Us?!?! I had heard about this illusive idea and was even allowed about 30 minutes of it once before Claire started getting itchy feet and wanted to climb a mountain. We planned to go to the beach today and sit, read, relax....and write our blogs of course. There aren't many sandy beaches on Malta and so they get quite busy with people who spend each and every day of their holiday there. The trick is to find one without pumping music and at least a bit of sand to put your towel down without having to pay extortionate prices for a lounger and an umbrella. I'm not sure what makes people think that it is okay ... read more

Malta day 5 June 5th A boisterous boat trip to the Blue Lagoon with my chavvy wife Before we set off for Malta we did some research into boat trips to the blue lagoon on Comino Island. We were recommended a trip with Barbarossa cruises who we paid a deposit to. Two days ago they said that they had to cancel our trip because of some people not working because of the recent election. Judging by the vast hordes of people who came on our boat let alone the many other boats at the lagoon we are a bit dubious about this. They gave us our deposit back and we spent it on a cheap and far from cheerful trip for a measly €17 including a buffet lunch and unlimited drinks. A bargain you may say. ... read more

When the wi fi costs money in your accommodation you do the decent thing and tell them to shove it. This means that uploading blogs on my ipad means finding free hotspots and there are a few around....if you can find them. There's one in the region of the Knickerbocker cafe so we went there for a morning beverage after having breakfast in our apartment. With yesterday's blog uploaded our day could begin and so we headed to the ferry terminal to nip across to Gozo. We arrived to find 16 rows of cars all trying to do the same thing and none of them moving. The guy directing the cars perched us at the back of a lane and then seemingly gave up and I presume the queue snaked back down the road behind us. ... read more

Malta day 1 June 1st Have you ever considered how much time you spend on tarmac? No? Me neither until today. And then Teresa May, Trump and their predecessors left me stranded on the tarmac at Birmingham airport for an extra two hours. Your wars abroad and bombing of innocents meant that when an extra bag was unaccounted for in the hold every passenger had to get off and identify their luggage. And then we struggled to get a take off slot. And apparently there wasn't a surplus bag in the end. And so we sat on the tarmac (well, in the plane) but you get my drift for far too long. But not long enough to get compensation. And this was after we'd been on that damned M6. More tarmac. We are now going on ... read more

Finland day 3 Husky dog sledding, snowshoeing, jumping in snow, sauna, jacuzzi and elk After an aurora free night the alarm went off at a brisk 6am. The glass igloos that had seemed so toasty when we first went in turned out to be quite cold during the night. Nothing compared with what we'll be getting tonight in the snow hotel of course! We both woke a few times and, whilst pulling the covers tighter, glanced hopefully up at the sky. But the northern lights continue to avoid us. We left our luxury igloos-the showers were fab by the way with two different sized heads and were nice and warm-and checked out so we could check in to the snow hotel later. The inclusive breakfast was excellent and had to keep us sustained till the evening ... read more