Malta To Canada Mail

My cousin in Malta sent me two cards in two identical envelopes.
One was mailed on June 23 and the other on June 28 in the same post office.
I received them here in Ottawa both in the same mail of July 6.
Canada no longer stamps arrival dates and times on foreign mail so I have no idea of explaining the "loss" for 5 days of the first card.
Any ideas besides the old excuse: it got stuck in the bottom of the bag?
Thanks in advance.

There might be a limited number of times for outgoing international mail to certain areas or got held up at a facility along the way and one caught up with the other.
Will

Do you accept guesses Tony

Certain mail may be allocated certain flights.
5 days does not seem a great deal of difference when
considering despatch from the office in quetsion,
a further matrix of bag weights, availabilty
and destination of bagged mail flights.

I will accept any suggestions you wish to make, friends Will and Rod. I have given up writing to Malta Post; I never got a reply to any question I've asked even when I wrote in Maltese.
The big joke in Toronto is that there are more Maltese in Canada than there are in Malta so mail between Malta and Canada shouldn't be limited by bag weights, etc. Maybe I'll try writing again or ask my cousin to give them a call (although I can still write very good error-free Maltese, I can no longer speak the language).

I applied for a mail sorters job a couple of years ago Tony,
and when I was taken through the sorter's room, a dozen people
standing and slipping mail into tin pigeon holes, which then was taken out and sorted further by the postie into his "round" sequence, you kinda
get the feeling how this thing works at all.

It may be, even the local postie held up a card for a day, when he didn't have much for your address, who knows.
I would think 5 days is acceptable,
If the difference be 10 days or more, I would question that.
Or am I too easy going :)

It would be interesting to know just how many times your
card was actually handled.