Emma will give a 60-minute tennis clinic at the resort’s jungle-clad, US Open-standard tennis courts.
She will also attend a meet-and-greet and just like any other 19-year-old is excited about going out to the teardrop isles.
She said: ‘I’m delighted to discover the Maldives for the first time. I will have an amazing time there.’
Kings and queens of court
Off Pat: Rafter is a fan
Baa Atoll has become something of a magnet for the cream of tennis.
With former World No. 1s Angelique Kerber and Pat Rafter and Olympic gold medallist Sasha Zverev and Davis Cup winner Viktor Troicki all gracing its courts.
And those of us who have been out to the Maldives have always been mighty glad to have an alternative to water sports.
Because as enjoyable as they are, if like me you weren’t born with a snorkel in your mouth scuba diving doesn’t come naturally.
Howzat!
Lounging around: In Kuramathi
And you’ll be glad for a game of football or cricket with the staff as I did in Kuramathi.
And cool down later in your own infinity pool.
All of which should appeal to the jet set tennis player.
The Queen Mum liked her gin, Princess Margaret her Champagne, Prince Charles his Cherry Brandy but we suspect it was a cup of cha for the Queen.
The QM’s drinking holes counted racecourses up and down the country, Mags the Caribbean and especially Nylon Beach in Tobago and Chuck the Isle of Lewis.
For the Queen though it was her many palaces around Britain.
And especially those where she spent most time relaxing… Windsor, Balmoral and Sandringham.
So if you want to toast her memory this weekend raise a cup with that most British tipple, tea.
And add to the 100 million drunk by Britons every day, almost as many as are queueing to see the Queen’s coffin.
The Royal cuppa
Take a seat: The Willow Tearooms
Britain’s love affair with East Indian tea began in royal circles with a hangry 7th Duchess of Bedford.
Anna’s answer was to take tea served with light snacks which became the phenomenon of afternoon tea.
The fashion took hold throughout the land and onto our doorstep in Glasgow, the Second City of the Empire.
Queen tea: And is that a tea cosy?
With the Mackintosh Tea Rooms which celebrate the high-chaired furniture and interior decorations of the Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
And that’s just the cup of tea for more modern home furnishing British institution Cath Kidston.
With Cath kindly giving us a tea-potted history of cha around the world.
Crowning glory: Cath Kidston in Southampton
Of course all the tea in China isn’t all the tea in the world but it was where we first got the taste.
When Emperor Shen Nung went for a seat under a Camellia sinensis tree in 2737 BC.
The story goes that a few leaves fell into his boiling drinking water to try the accidental infusion and tea was born.
There’s more to this tea
Tea in bed: OLCOTE in Sri Lanka
His tea rituals he mapped out in Ch’a Ching (Tea Classic), the first book about tea written during the 8th century.
Taoist, Buddhist and Confucian in its philosophy, Chinese tea ceremonies are centred around peace, mindfulness, and appreciation.
And as many as the tea leaves in a cup, their most famous ceremony is the kung fu tea ceremony, sometimes known as gong fu.
Of course the tea we all know and love in the UK is from the Jewel in the Crown.
No, not the curry house.
But where Our Little Corner of The Earth, or OLCOTE, the hotel retreat of my old Sri Lankan-Irish force of nature Tess De Kretser will pour.
Confucius he say ‘a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step’… the Bucket List Company they say build your Great Wall of China a brick at a time.
And that’s why they offer you the chance to pace your payments in instalments for their short and long-hauls.
Running with our metaphor du jour the Bucket List Company have a ten-day trek along the Great Wall of China.
Well, a stretch of the 13,000-mile ancient fortification at any rate.
And now the history bit
Child’s play: The Wall
The story goes that seven different states each built their own walls and used them for defence until the unification of China in the Qin Dynasty, back around 221BC.
Qin put on an extension and his successors added to it over the years.
Another brick in the wall
Forbidden fruit: The Forbidden City
On this trip, not only will you tackle the Great Wall and drink in the history, but you’ll get to grips with Beijing too.
And channel your inner protester (arms outstretched, just not in front of the cops) at Tiananmen Square.
And delve into the Forbidden City and Beijing’s old residential quarters.
Your walks will be gentle, only four days’ trekking where you’ll cover 24 miles.
Of course we’ll all be only walking in the footsteps of those who have come before us.
And that will mean ticking off another of my Mum and Dad’s bucket list.
Deal me in
Snap happy: The Wall
So, if you want to shell out in a oner you can and your ten-dayer with flights out of the UK will cost you £1,900.
Or if you want to spread it out just put away £153.85 x 13 months.
The price is in a twin share room. And you can get your own room from an extra £400.
With Dev flying the flag for India in his rallying speech in New York: ‘We of Ireland and you of India must each of us endeavour.
‘Both as separate peoples and in combination to rid ourselves of the vampire that is fattening on our blood.’
Sandals in the wind: Gandhi
While he was presented with a green/white/orange tricolour in San Francisco by Gopal Singh.
Gopal being of the convicted Indo-Irish-German (1915) conspirators (get your history books out).
Throw in too the impact of Cork hunger striker Terence McSwinney from 1929 on future Indian non-aggressive activism.
Stars of India
Ya Bhutto: The Bhuttos
Future Indian leaders, Rahul Gandhi among them had Irish ideals running through them.
While remembering too that today is Pakistan Independence Day as well, Benazir Bhutto and Pervez Musharaf were both educated by Irish orders.
And Gandhi’s granddaughter Tara (and that’s Irish) also spoke up for Bobby Sands in Belfast.
When she told the audience: ‘It remains the same iridescent love today as I proceed on my 86th year of my life.
‘How inspiring to be in the land of Seamus Heaney and Bobby Sands.’
The Bloody Partitions
The hotseat awaits: Leo Varadkar
Now the friendship has extended to a half-Indian Leo Varadkar ascending to the station of Taoiseach which he will regain this December.
Of course the biggest similarity between the island of Ireland and the Indian Subcontinent, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh is they have both suffered partition.
Because of the cack-handedness of the British Empire under the flag commonly known in Ireland as the ‘butcher’s apron.’
Of course being schooled in a Pakistan area we were never taught one thing about our neighbours’ history or geography.
Ancient Greek and Rome, yes, but the Sub-Continent, no.
Well, your map will show you the mighty stretches of the Karakorams in the North and the delta of the Indus River in the South.
And not just the grimy streets of Islamabad or Pakistanis playing cricket, although I always like to go where locals play and pray… so bring on the mosques and the midwicket.
Peace man: Jimmy in Jordan
But there is so much more to Pakistan than that (Doh!).
There’s wild boar hunting too (who knew?), mountain and desert jeep safaris and camel (another fave) nd yak safaris and trout fishing and bird watching.
Take your pick
Round the corner: An historic site
And because the attractions are limitless we’re just going to give you a sample here.
For the day that’s in it when The Dutch Republic sold New Holland to Portugal in 1661 here’s Brasaleia and other sold countries.
No, you didn’t know the Dutch took 63 tonnes of gold from Portugal for what would become Brazil.
They had run the north-east part of the country we now know as Sambaland for 31 years before cashing in after a war.
The Dutch were the great merchants of their day and dealmakers.
And the best dealmaker of our day, and most famous living New Yorker, Donald Trump, would have approved of another deal.
Manhattan transfer
The art of the deal: With The Donald in New York
Dutch governor Peter Minuit bought Manhattan from the native Americans in 1621 for trinkets to the value of $24.
And when the Dutch relinquished it in 1674 to the English who rechristened it New York they got the rich sugar and cotton territory of Suriname in South America in return.
All of which would be a poor take on a weekend in a Las Vegas casino.
LA is my laddie: In Los Angeles
Ten million greenbacks got them southern Arizona and New Mexico from their neighbours five years later.
But they weren’t finished there and sealed the deal of all deals when they waved $7.2m under the Russian Bear’s nose in 1867 for Alaska.
And again that proved to be mere loose change compared with the oodles of money they’ve taken in oil since.
While the Americans have waved the chequebook more than anybody the British haven’t been slow in flashing cash either.
Rate Britain
Water island: Singapore
And at various stages they have bought bits of India and Africa from the Danes.
All of which makes you think Trump could have done a deal with them over Greenland.
While Singapore was purchased from Johor, a state in Malaysia, for $60,000 in 1824.
Scots bank it
Leg it to… the Isle of Man
Who would have thought too that the Scots were at it too long before any of them.
When they forked out 4,000 marks sterling and 100 mark annuity to the Norwegians for…
The Hebrides, Kintyre, islands off the Firth of Clyde and get this, the Isle of Man, from Norway in 1266.
It’s ironic then that the Scots were “bought and sold for English gold such a parcel of rogues in a nation” when they surrendered to the union with England which created Great Britain.
And which you can read all about in the excellent Price of Scotland from historian Douglas Watt.
All of which we’ll reflect on on this lazy Saturday afternoon… Brasaleia and other sold countries.
They were forced indoors to toss their cabers in lockdown, but now we can gawp at them showing off their special skills in public again… the Highland Games are back!
Ours, in North Berwick, east of Edinburgh, is on August 6.
