I booked a holiday for my husband, my mum and myself at the San Anton hotel in St Paul's Bay. The San Anton is a nice, basic hotel offering self catering or all inclusive. It's ideal for families as there is organised entertainment for both children and adults throughout the day. This was ideal for us as my mum can't walk very well and is often too tired to venture out of the hotel. There was a 5 minute walk to the nearest bus stop from the hotel so it wasn't difficult to find our way round the island on the local buses. Every thing I'd read about the local buses prior to arriving in Malta suggested they were falling to bits and were incredibly uncomfortable, however, I didn't find them any worse than the average bus at home in Glasgow, and at 80 pence, approximately, for the longest journey they offer much better value.

We arrived at the market around 10 in the morning, spent about an hour walking round the market where we bought dozens of pirate CDs at about £5 each (excellent quality). We then got on the bus again to be taken to Sliema where we boarded the Captain Morgan's boat on a trip round the harbour, with a buffet lunch included. After that we were taken to the Marsa race track to see the trotting horse races. The only complaint I would have about that is that the minimum bet is approximately £1.50 which seems a bit much to me.

The Sicily trip is not for the faint hearted. They advertise the catamaran trip as a 90 minute journey but fail to mention it could take 3 times as long in adverse weather conditions. The stewards spend most of their time handing out sick bags. I wondered why they have such strong air conditioning but it's obviously to take away the acrid smell of vomit during the journey.

Back in Malta we took a local bus to the town of M'dina, a medieval, fortified town which, from a distance, looks like something out of fantasy novel. A couple of minutes walk from M'dina takes you to the town of Rabat where you can visit the catacombs. Just next to Rabat is the craft village of Ta'Quali where I bought some beautiful glass ornaments at very reasonable prices.

We did some scuba diving while we were in Malta and the prices are the cheapest we've come across. We went with Strand Divers who took us to the Blue Grotto, Cirkawwa and Sliema for some very interesting (although very cold) dives. I would advise anybody thinking of going diving in Malta in April to take a dry suit with them!