Enjoying a day in Sliema

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Another lazy start to the day - I'm starting to get used to this and will be in for a rude shock tomorrow when I need to be at the airport by 7:15 lol. Headed down to the Point in Sliema for a morning swim. It was occasionally overcast today but when the sun came out it really had a bite to it. I enjoyed my time swimming the length of the 'pool' and taking the occasional view of Valletta in. After swimming and sunning for the morning, I headed back to my apartment, stopping along the way to have an espresso macchiato. After showering I headed out again to meet up with friends of Clare & Pete's - Mary & Peter. They were delivering a lens that's Clare was lending me to replace the one I damaged on my good camera. After a little bit of confusion about our meeting spot we finally met up at 1:30 at Giorgio's and had a lovely lunch. They had recently travelled to Sicily so it was great to be able to swap travel stories with them. In fact they had read my blog about Sicily and decided to visit Villa Roma del Casale that I had written about. We had a lovely couple of hours together and a very enjoyable lunch.

After lunch I headed back to my apartment as I wanted to have a bit of a rest and also make a start on packing up my gear, as I would be leaving in the morning. I was pleased to see that Clare's lens fit my camera as this now means I can start using it again. Around 6:45 I headed out to meet up with Rosie and Lucas as we were heading out to dinner for our last night. Lucas had booked Gululu again as we had enjoyed it the other night and it is a great place to sit for dinner if you can get a balcony table, which he had arranged. We jumped in a bus and made it there with plenty of time. Rosie and Lucas knew it was my birthday soon - on Friday - so they gave me some flowers and also a beautiful gift of silver earrings that were made in Malta as a momento of our special time. The earring are filigree and in the shape of the Malta cross. Such a lovely gesture! We had a wonderful evening which started with a glass of proscecco and was then followed by great food and very nice red wine. I am so lucky that our timing was just right and I got to spend time over the last few days with these guys! We have such a wonderful family and I felt thoroughly spoilt.

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