Someone said to me last week, ‘You two are like a little pair of House Martins; you always fly south for the winter’. It tickled me and I couldn’t really dispute it either as it has become a bit of a tradition. Following an early yet speedy start from The Fort, we hit a bit of a go-slow at the airport. Having qued for a place in the various ques, we crawled through the baggage area (after accidentally jumping half of the que), then had to take our bags in the outsized baggage area (via another que), got searched at passport control then had my hand luggage examined (at the end of another que). When we finally got sat on the plane, we were told that we weren’t going anywhere just yet as Malta Airport was closed! A hijacked plane had just landed there with 118 hostage passengers! Nearly four hours after parking the car we taxied right past the car park – the irony was not lost that in that time we’d managed to travel about 300m from the car!