Or then again, maybe they're Chinese corkscrew handles found in a Belfast skip

Chances of our getting home this week seem to be improving. Even if our Manchester flight on Thursday is cancelled, Air Malta have laid on a load of extra flights to Northern Italy which is good news when you're stuck on an island. Malta was once described as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier". Unfortunately it's also an unshiftable aircraft carrier........

Today we had a walk round the cliffs at Dingli and went back to Rabat to see St Agatha's Catacombs (really interesting). The museum at the catacombs was another of these fascinating everything-and-the-kitchen-sink places (a bit of pencilled music and a signature of Mascagni, anyone? or a mummified Nile crocodile?) whose most memorable exhibit must surely qualify for an award as the most tentative description ever made of an artefact:

"The terracotta Shabtis shown here are presumably of a Phoenicio-Punic make, found probably in Maltese tombs, and were possibly used as amulets." (Emphases in original).