We’ve just arrived in Malta for a week of sun and exploring. It is 1°C when we leave Blois at 5.20 am and 15°C when we arrive in Valetta at 1 pm. After checking out our rental apartment, Marina View, with its stunning view of Vittoriosa across the other side of the Marina, we have an excellent meal at the Enchanté Restaurant on the waterside.

After lunch we walk down the other side of marina and over the footbridge to Vittoriosa. It’s quite windy and my trusty Australian Akubra Traveller* hat blows off my head and into the marina. Oh no!

We watch as it makes its way down the marina, hoping it won’t sink. I see a man with a little boat who ferries people across to the other side so I go down to see if he can save my hat.

He very nicely manoeuvres under the rope with his passengers on board until he is close enough to swoop down and retrieve the hat.  When he hands it up to me I tell him it’s an Australian hat. “From Sydney?”, he asks. “I’ve been to Sydney!”

The hat stands up surprisingly well to its dunking but I get sick of carrying a soppy hat after a while and strap it to the back of Jean Michel’s back pack. I won’t be wearing it near the marina again!