Moose cookies

The visas have just arrived!  Hurrah! 

We have our passports back, with rather handsome US visas laminated into them.  It says the visa lasts for ten years, so I assume when I renew my passport next year I can just take the old one with me to show Customs, or Immigration, or Homeland Security, or Michael Moore, or the CIA or whoever that I have jumped through all the requisite Embassy hoops.

Flaming hoops.  With broken glass around the edges.  And a big tank full of flesh-stripping leeches underneath.  Yeah, that's how it felt. 

I'm going to buy myself a new suitcase this weekend.  We'd put all the holiday plans on hold after we discovered we needed visas*, so I feel like I can start looking forward to going now. 

We need to book a hire car to get us around New England.  We fly into Boston, home of the most mental traffic system ever, and stay in a hotel there for a few nights, then we're off to New Hampshire, Maine and Cape Cod to see various lovely mates.  There is also, hopefully, going to be a boat trip to Nantucket to see the whaling museum. 

We went to Nantucket before, but the museum was shut for the summer, which the woman who sold us the boat tickets "forgot" to mention, so we spent a wet, warm day mostly sitting in cafes, or peeking through the windows of expensive antiques shops.  This year, though, we are determined to see the harpoons. 

We're also going to go to the LL Bean store.  Last time we went there we bought a smoker.

And a moose-shaped cookie cutter.  I might make some moose cookies at the weekend. 

I'm all excited now.  We're going on holiday.




*Yeah, Shitstorm from Hades, you guessed it

Burned

Am still in Malta, in case you were wondering. Where I have managed to get bizarre and disturbing sunburn. I look like I am wearing a pair of shiny red shoes, and one (only one) bright red armbrace, like a camp gladiator.

How did I manage that, I hear you ask. With my bionic ears.

Well, yesterday we went out on a boat trip. Mr WithaY was scuba diving and had very kindly arranged for me to come with the dive group to look at the little island of Comino, a little way off Gozo. Look on a map.

All went well as we set sail from Gozo, sun sparkling off the iridescent blue sea, etcetera etcetera etcetera.

We got the the first dive site, where the boat anchored itself, about 100 yards from the shore. All the divers started getting kitted up. This in itself would have been entertainment enough for me, but I was realising with growing dismay that this was where we were staying.

On the boat. Not on the island.

In what was, frankly, rather lumpy water. The boat was rocking side to side, end to end and I think also straight up and down*. I sat and watched the happy divers all leap into the water, and tried to ignore my growing queasiness.

I managed to ignore it for half an hour or so by lying to myself that I was sleeping, as I thought, in the shade, with my head in my arms, leaning on the rail. That time-tested tactic eventually failed me, and I was sick as a dog.

Several times. It was most dramatic. Luckily, not onto any of the divers as they swam about under the boat.

Anyhoo, once they all got back in the boat we sailed off to another bit of Comino and got off the boat (I was first) to eat our packed lunches. I asked the boat driver if I could wait on land while they did the second dive, and he agreed to come back and pick me up in a couple of hours.

So instead of a second hideous bout of mal de mare, I spent a pleasant afternoon watching small fish, crabs, lizards and dragonflies in a rocky cove.

But unfortunately, because I felt so ill in the morning, I stupidly neglected to take my customary anti-sunburn precautions. Tch.

Still having a lovely holiday though.



*I may have hallucinated that part.