Malta always in my thoughts

When I arrived in Malta for the first time I never realised that it would remain forever in my heart.

I arrived in 1956, married a Maltese girl in 1957 (yes, our golden wedding anniversary was on March 3) and we had our first child in Malta in 1958. We left then and have lived in Scotland ever since. We have had many visits to sunny Malta over those 50 years, and seen many changes, some for the good and some for the bad.

Last year we came on holiday again and being an avid reader of this column on the net I must admit I was not looking forward to it with all the doom and gloom that is written about Malta. However I must say that I loved being home. There were a lot more things I liked than disliked. I loved the new look Waterfront, the cleaned up Portes des Bombes, Fort Rinella, St James Cavalier. I thought some of the roads had improved, the restaurants were great (some bad). I think you are getting there: so keep at it.

My visions of the future are getting a new entrance to Valletta - try and get the gate back to what it was - build a new opera house in a prominent site, move the parliament buildings into the Bighi hospital site so that when cruise ships enter the harbour they will think they are in Athens. 

I could go on but I think I have bored readers enough.