It's Sunday morning, early. I am at a car boot sale. The sun beats down with the temperament of a tango dancer. A warm island breeze confirms that Eden does in fact exist. I have negotiated my way through an aural/visual cacophony of Britny Spears, Manchester United strips, and the crackle of cellophaned three-pack pants until, having near completed my journey to the only dark corner left of the market, I spy a selection of top class chuck-outs.
"I deserve this", I think, as I sniff the Mediterranean brine divine whilst promenading amongst wind-up gramophones and gilt-laden paintings.
I am not in Scotland.
Ladybirds? A few, mainly shop-weary cast-offs, but who's complaining when they are American First Editions. Valletta you're my kinda town.
The last time I had visited a sun-drenched flea market was in the then unfashionable Palma. Occasional flashbacks of a mummified siskin in a cage (the wire contraption was for sale - the petrified plumage was an added freebie) still haunt me. Then there was the street stalls of Torun which uncovered a vast number of Gothic script tomes circa 1800 alongside Nazi paraphenalia left unclaimed by their owner-occupiers, no doubt when making a swift exit from this reclaimed land.
Another time in iron-curtain Warsaw, a deluge of bootlegged clapped out Clapton cassettes marked out the entire territory of the stadium given up to the only official free enterprise initiative (sic), which in many ways was worse than the relentless throbbing whine of Elton John singing Nikita which we suffered as captive audience throughout our coach excursion through Sicily (the biggest island in the Med) - but that, as they say, is another story... Gonna make me an offer?
Malteasers - more Maltese adventures