Church in evening sunlight

A great day!

Hollyoaks omnibus to begin with, then a bit of an internet session to finalise some details of the trip to Gozo. We've booked transfer by float plane between Valetta and Gozo. It's only a 10-minute flight, but if it's anything like the experience we had in Canada when we took a float plane from Vancouver to Sechelt, it'll be worth the rather hefty price tag of 42 euro one way (we'll return by the more sedate ferry). It's just as well we also checked the time of our flight to Malta, since we'd forgotten that it's so early ion the morning. We'll need to order a taxi for 5.45 am to get us to the airport for check-in for the 7.15 flight. Still, flying out this early has the advantage at the other end of getting us in to Malta with a good part of the day to enjoy.

We took a notion to have lunch out, and intended to try on of the new places recently added to the restaurant scene in Monkstown. One looked too pricey, though, and the other apparently doesn't open for lunch. So we went across the road to Valparaiso, and this turned out to be a really good decision. They offer a Sunday lunch for 24 euro 95 (four courses), which seemed like a good deal. It was. Our starters were the star of the show (our experience is that this is very often the case in the majority of places), both my Beetroot & Cumin soup and Carl's Armoatic Pork Belly and Macadamia Nut brittle. Mains and dessert went a bit downhill after these really excellent starters, wine was pricey enough, and I was a bit miffed when a mandatory 19% service charge was added to the bill. After adding a little extra on for friendly, helpful service, we ended up paying 85 euro between us. I'd definitely recommend the place, though.

While finalising Gozo earlier, I got a call from one of our regular Grand Prix lunch hosts, wondering if we'd watched the Japanese race live. We hadn't, of course, and we'd already decided to go for lunch rather than wait in to watch the race at 3.00 (especially since we'd accidentally stumbled on Setanta's coverage just as the race was coming to and end, so knew that Alonso had won). As it happened, though, Goggins pub, which is underneath the restaurant, was showing the Grand Prix on one of its too-many TVs. At least this was in a quiet corner, and we were able to keep in touch with what had happened and figure out the circumstances of Alonso's win. Only five points between Hamilton and Massa now, with just two races to go. Come on Massa!

It was almost 6.00 by the time we left the pub, and the late evening sunlight was doing wonderful things to the stonework of the two churches in Monkstown. This is the Protestant chruch on the corner, affectionately known as the 'Pepperpot' church. It's recently had a clean-up job done to its stonework, and it looked especially good in this light.

While you're here, why not check out the Pink Ladies from Wales that we met last night.