Malta 2006 - Day 1

It’s 1 a.m. and I can’t sleep.

Something’s not right.

It’s 1.05 a.m. and I still can’t sleep.

Something’s still not right.

I can always sleep. I’m a marathon sleeper. I can give Rip Van Winkle a run for his money. I’m the Martini of sleepers. I can sleep anywhere, anyhow, anytime. I can easily sleep through an entire Elton John concert. I can sleep for England. I can sleep standing up. I can sleep sitting down. I dream I’m asleep when I’m asleep.

It’s 1.10 a.m. and I can’t sleep.

I’m the man who slept through the night of the 1987 hurricane; woke up and wondered where the shed had gone. I hardly ever have problems with sleeping. In fact my problems with sleeping are so few and far between I can remember them vividly.

There have only been two. One was last year when we had to get up in the early hours to go on holiday and the other was one Christmas Eve when I lay awake until 5 o’clock in the morning, too excited to sleep, hoping that Santa would bring me that new bike and a geometry set I’d asked him for. As it happened I didn’t get either but Pauline said it wasn’t surprising because it wasn’t the sort of thing a 59 year old man should be asking for, and besides that I didn’t send my letter up the chimney so Santa didn’t get it anyway.

It’s 1.15 a.m. and I can’t sleep.

Bloody hell it’s 3.15 a.m. and Pauline’s shouting in my ear to get up NOW otherwise we’ll not get to the airport in time.

It’s 3.15 a.m. and I’ve been asleep, dead to the world for far too long.

We’re supposed to be leaving at 4 a.m. to be at Gatwick for our check-in time for this year’s holiday to Malta. We’re going with Emma and two of her friends Hollie and Sam. Last year Emily came too but this year Emily is apparently no longer a friend so wasn’t asked. At least that’s one set of luggage I don’t have to worry about being over the weight limit.

At the check-in I was in my usual nervous state about the baggage allowance. It seems to get less and less every year. I don’t understand why. The aircraft are not getting any smaller are they? If anything they’re getting bigger. So what is all this saved weight used for? Then I looked around the airport and realised. Of course, it was compensating for the passengers who are getting bigger…and bigger…and bigger.

As Pauline checked in I hoisted the cases on to the conveyor belt and watched with bated breath to see if they would be accepted. The check-in clerk tied the airline tags around each one in turn and away they went. Thank God for that. No stern looks and requests to take that suitcase off and go to that desk over there where a man will look very angry and tell you that it weighs too much. We were in the clear. I started to relax. The luggage had gone and at last I felt like I was really on holiday. Until Pauline came storming up. “Fifty pounds excess baggage payment!” she said, “Fifty pounds! Hollie’s case was ten kilos over and one of ours was 3 over. The clerk said she’d just charge for ten kilos at five pounds a kilo. That’s fifty pounds!!!”

“Fifty quid? Bloody hell. What’s Hollie got in there for heaven’s sake?” I said.

Turned out she’d packed a portable anvil in case she needed it.

We had to take our special ticket to the other desk where the angry man looked at us angrily and said, “You do this once more and you’re all in line for a good flogging, do you hear? That’ll be fifty pounds please.”

With fifty quid spending money already spent we wandered over to passport control and for the first time we had to get into one of those queues that you have at the amusement parks. The one where you think you’re only one minute away from the front but after queuing down roped off aisles that zigzag back and forth for five miles you soon realise that you’ve been had and you’ll never get on the ride if you queued all day and all night for the rest of eternity. The passport control queue was just like that except that we got through before eternity ended with a few minutes to spare. Yes I know eternity is never ending but you know what I mean. Once through we were soon called to board our flight. Another first was having to get a courtesy bus from the terminal building to the aircraft. Although this is nothing new at foreign airports it was the first time we’d had to do it at Gatwick.

We boarded the bus and then had to wait bloody ages for the driver to turn up and drive us across the tarmac. This delayed things considerably and by the time everyone had been ferried out and on board it was past our take-off time of 6.55 a.m.

We were on one of those Airbus things. One row of three seats either side of a centre aisle and with so many rows crammed into the length of the plane it was difficult to see how it could meet whatever safety standards might exist for this aircraft. The distance between one row of seats and the one in front was a matter of inches. There was hardly any room to stand and shuffle across the seats let alone sit down and have any leg room. I couldn’t sit with my legs straight ahead I had to spend the whole flight sitting at an angle The width of the seat was tailored to a twelve year old. The sides were pressing into me whichever way I sat. It was the most uncomfortable flight I think I’ve ever been on. God knows how some of those extra large people coped (and as always there were plenty of them).

At last everyone seemed to be on board and seated when the captain came on: Click - “Sorry about the delay ladies and gentlemen but it seems to have taken rather longer than anticipated to load you all. We’ll be leaving shortly.”

Ten minutes later the captain came back on with the words that strike terror into the hearts of every airline passenger: Click – “Ladies and gentlemen we have a slight problem.”

Jesus Christ, what’s he going to say?

”It seems we’ll be leaving without one of the passengers.”

What’s that mean? Have we been hijacked? Are they going to take one of us at random and shoot us?

“This person appears to have lost his passport and cannot be allowed to board. There’ll be a short delay while their luggage is taken off the aircraft.”

Bloody hell. How has it got this late in the day for this idiot to realise he hasn’t got his bloody passport? He obviously had it when he passed through passport control and the check-in desk and then somehow lost it in the airport between there and the boarding desk.

Ten interminable minutes later it was the captain again: Click – “It seems the baggage handlers are having difficulty tracing the offending luggage. There’ll be a few more minutes before we’re off.” It was now thirty minutes since they’d started looking.

Click – “This is the captain….”

We know, we bloody know who you are, just put us out of our misery...

“This is the captain. It appears that things aren’t looking very good at the moment. The baggage handlers have searched the rear hold without success and are now having to search the front hold.”

Bloody hell, bloody hell.

Click – “This is the captain……”

You say that once more and I’ll come up there and stuff that intercom set right down your throat…

”This is the captain. Things seem to be going from bad to worse. The luggage is proving exceptionally difficult to locate. Usually it can be identified fairly quickly by using the automatic bar code system but this does not appear to be working. The only recourse is for this passenger’s party to disembark and help to visually identify the luggage themselves. In the meantime, air traffic control have given us a slot of 08.15.”

Oh this is ridiculous. 6.55 a.m. take off originally, now it’s 8.15 a.m.? And we’re all stuck on the plane. Nobody can move. Nobody can get on or off…except for the bloody people who are in this idiot’s party. Why can’t they get the dumbo to look for his luggage himself? He of all people would know what it looks like wouldn’t he? Why don’t they get him to clamber through the hold and find his luggage? Hang on though, not such a good idea eh? If he was a terrorist that wouldn’t be the best damn decision ever made, would it?

And do you know? I sat there and didn’t see a single person get off the plane to go and help identify the luggage. Instead, around 8.05 a.m. there was a further update: Click – “This is the captain….”

Right, that does it…………”Sit down, shut up and do your seat belt up,” Pauline said.

“This is the captain. Thank you for your patience. We have been given clearance for take off.”

So, not only did I have to spend the best part of a three hour flight sitting in a seat no bigger than a child’s car seat made of barbed wire I had to endure an extra hour and a quarter in it while they tried to find that dummy’s luggage.

During the flight my body slowly started to seize up. First my neck started to ache, then my back, then my legs. I twisted my body towards Pauline, forcing my legs to one side against the back of the seat in front, then five minutes later twisting the other way towards the woman on my right who thought her luck had changed. There was no position I felt comfortable in for more than a few minutes at a time and because of the ridiculously small amount of room I had to hold my magazine in front of my face as if I was short-sighted. I couldn’t move it further away unless I held it over the top of the seat and ask the bloke in front to read it to me.

As for trying to eat, well forget it.

Once the tray was down it was like being eighteen months old again and sitting in a high chair. As the tray lowered it passed within a millimetre of the end of my nose and came to rest just below my chin. To eat I just emptied the contents of my yummy hot breakfast pack onto the tray, opened my mouth and scraped everything in. Didn’t spill a thing. The woman next to me seemed quite impressed. The cup of tea presented a bit of a challenge but once I’d bunged up all the gaps in the tray with tissues I found pouring the tea onto the tray and quickly sucking it up with a straw before it all got absorbed by the tissue was a great success.

The woman next to me seemed even more impressed.

During the flight I glanced out of the window and saw a printed warning on the top surface of the wing. Within a large rectangle marked along the edge of the wing were the words ‘Do Not Walk Outside This Area’. Just in case you fancied stretching your legs I suppose.

Flight over I stumbled down the steps of the plane as if I had two broken arms and two fractured legs. I was numb all over and each leg didn’t know it was its turn to take the weight of my body and collapsed under the surprise of it all. And because I was so numb I didn’t know which leg was in front or behind. So between the three of us, me and the two legs, we were all over the place. My arms were in the same state. Flailing about like two rubber hosepipes they did their best but as they weren’t really communicating with my legs very well they decided to just do what they thought best at the time.

Anyway, here we were at Malta International airport and soon to be en route for our hotel in the resort of Qawra, pronounced Ora, the Q is silent as in a line of mime artists. The hotel is called The Qawra Palace and is on the seafront with views of the bay beyond. Its pool complex is also right on the seafront too.

By 3 p.m. we’d checked in and Pauline, Emma, Hollie and Sam disappeared to the pool while I caught up on some much needed sleep that I’d lost earlier in the day. By 6.30 p.m. everyone was starving. Our hot breakfast packs were but a dim memory so an early dinner was called for. We all went down to the dining room for our first evening meal together. For the rest of the holiday we would only meet up with Emma and friends accidentally but for this first evening we were one big family.

According to the little card we were given at reception we are allocated seating anywhere in Station F, not as I thought a military barrack room but a designated area of the dining room. We walked in to be greeted by a short waiter of about fifty-ish who bustled up to us in a sort of impatient Basil Fawlty manner.

“Yes? How many?”

“Well, two and three or even better a table for five?” I asked pleasantly.

“Two? Three? Er, here two. Three? Three? Er, here three.”

“Could we have two tables near each other?” I asked.

“Cuh! Here, here,” he said.

Meanwhile Pauline had spotted a round table big enough for five in a far corner of the room and while the waiter was saying, “Cuh” a lot to me she’d wandered over to it and waving her hand she shouted, “How about this one?” The waiter bustled over to her, looked even more harassed and abruptly said, “Yes, yes” and whizzed off.

He was in a different time and universe to the rest of us. He moved so quickly, one minute he was right in front of you, you blinked and he’d be up the other end of the dining room. As the three girls and myself approached Pauline by the big table Emma suddenly said, “Mum, it’s only got four chairs.” Which was true. Not only did it only have four chairs, it would be extremely difficult to fit in a fifth chair without everyone eating off each other’s plates. So what with the cramped conditions and the fact that the corner of the dining room was quite dark we decided we didn’t want it after all and moved back to the two original tables the waiter had shown us in the first place. We sat down while the waiter whizzed straight past us over to the big table in the corner, stopped abruptly when he saw we weren’t there, did a 180 degree turn and in another blink of the eye was standing next to us fussing with our cutlery and muttering, “Cuh. Cuh. You no want that one after all eh?”

Then he was off again.

We knew that all we had to do was go up to the buffet tables and help ourselves but we thought we’d like to order some drinks first. We couldn’t see the little waiter anywhere. He was probably there all the time in his world but in our world we couldn’t see him as his speed of movement made him invisible to us. Then all of a sudden he materialised a few tables away. I got up and walked over to him.

“How do we order drinks? Do we tell you?” I asked.

“Yes, yes. Sit down.”

I sat down immediately like a naughty schoolboy.

The next thing I knew he was standing at our table.

“You want house wine?”

We shrugged.

“Have you got a list?” I asked.

Another “Cuh” and he was off again. Back he came with the wine list and screeched to a halt by our table just overshooting it by a few feet. We quickly glanced at the list and pointing, said, “We’ll have this one here,” but he’d shot off again into his parallel universe. We sat there a few more minutes hoping he’d come back but there was no sign of him. “Look,” said Pauline, “let’s just get up and get our food. We can order the drinks when we get back.”

“I’ll stay here and wait for him, you go,” I said. On her way Pauline suddenly saw the waiter and placed our order. I saw this and decided there was no point in waiting any longer at the table. I got up and as I wandered over to the buffet the waiter suddenly appeared right in front of me. He was wobbling backwards and forwards, the effect of reducing his speed down from the speed of light to 0 m.p.h. in a matter of seconds. He held out his pad and said, “Room number?”

I didn’t have a clue.

Oh come on, we’d only arrived that afternoon, Pauline had checked us in and not having seen our key or taken any notice of the number above our room door it’s understandable isn’t it? Isn’t it?

“Room number? Oh, yes,” I said, “Hang on,” and quickly scanning the room for Pauline I shouted over to her, “What’s our room number?” To my left I could hear a succession of Cuh’s.

“848,” she shouted back.

I turned to the waiter and said, “Eight.”

He said, “Eight.”

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “OK.”

I said, “Four.”

He said, “Four.”

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “OK.”

I said, “Eight.”

He said, “Eight.”

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “OK.”

Then he said, “Sign. Sign.”

I signed. He Cuh’d and disappeared.

Meanwhile the girls had gone up to the buffet tables but in their absence someone else had sat down at their table thinking it was unoccupied. I was just about to tell these people that the table was already taken but decided to save all the trouble and aggravation by telling the girls on their return to sit at another table just the other side of us.

Out of the corner of my eye I thought I could see the waiter speeding towards us from twenty-one light years away. He was travelling in straight lines. As soon as he came up against an obstacle such as a guest travelling in ultra-ultra slow motion he would crash to a halt, do a ninety degree turn and accelerate from zero to warp factor 79 in seconds. Repeating these manoeuvres across the dining room he soon stopped by the girl’s old table with their drinks. With bottles poised in mid-air over the table he looked at the couple now sitting there and did a quick double take and a double “Cuh”. Then he saw Emma, Hollie and Sam sitting at their new table. He didn’t say anything but while he was serving us all our drinks I could see he was eyeing us up in a very suspicious manner. I just shrugged, smiled and said, “Cuh, eh?” it didn’t seem to make him feel any better though. I think he thinks we’re doing it all on purpose. Luckily we got through dinner without further incident apart from when I bumped into the waiter who was travelling back to meet himself travelling forward and our collision seemed to have created a small black hole just to the left of the coffee machine. Unfortunately the coffee machine doesn’t exist anymore so I expect there’ll be ructions at breakfast tomorrow.

After dinner we went for a stroll, found some of the Qawra town delights but failed to find a cash point machine despite wandering around half the town looking for one.

Tomorrow is the dreaded ‘Reps Welcome Session’.