We live on an island where the sun shines nearly every day of the year, where the nearest beach is just 15 minutes away, where come spring, summer and autumn, the weathermen can take a holiday. People pay to go on holiday to a country like ours, and we live here full time. Aren't we lucky?

And I mean this in the most uncynical of tones. I love the way I can just drive up to Riviera (the most beautiful beach on the island and thankfully inaccessible to those who take the kitchen sink and mobile disco with them to the beach) to watch the spectacular sunset.

I love the way my daughter, at two, thinks that sea and sandcastles are part of her everyday life. I love how I can go for a quick dip in Sliema with my daughter and then, drip-dripping, walk all the way to the promenade for a home-made Sicilian ice-cream. And I love the way my daughter then tastes of salt and ice-cream when I kiss her chubby cheeks.

And aren't we lucky that we can practically live outdoors? It's not just the sitting on the doorstep and enjoying the breeze and a chat with the neighbours; it's all the music in the air: feasts, live bands, the jazz festival, concerts by international singers.

And what about the theatre? As I watched Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors and then Porn: The Musical at Argotti Gardens, with fireworks of some feast or other as the perfect background, I could not help being thankful that I lived here, on this island where I can just live the slow life.

I have, I realise, become a fervent advocate of the slow life. Which is why I think Land Rover are spot on with their tag line 'One life. Live it'.

I'm sure that my father's passing away, a year ago today, has got very much to do with this snail-paced kind of approach.

More and more, as I go about making life choices, I get the feeling that my father - a very patient man for whom the term 'rushing around' was an inconceivable nightmare - must have a lot to do with my now stopping to think before acting impulsively. Hmmm. Funny that.

He's managing to influence me more from wherever he is than he ever could here. I can almost hear his voice echoing with incredulous relief: 'Ħajja t'Alla, binti!'

There isn't a day that goes by when I don't miss his being present in my life and it's been a very reflective, if painful, year. It's also been a study in grief and how people react to it. Which in a nutshell is: press the ignore button.

Now, after a year, people mostly go at lengths to avoid mentioning or talking about my father, because they think that pretending that nothing happened is the 'appropriate' way to deal with it. This is typical of a society where death, in reality, is a taboo. Which is a pity because grief is the last gift we give to the dead: the expression and proof of love.

The point is not to relieve, but share, share the memories so that the person will always be remembered.

Pretending is pointless. It's very clear to me that things are not the same anymore. I will never again be Tony's daughter. I will never again know the reassurance that there is a man in this world who will always give me his unconditional support, no matter what. It has at least made me realise that the mysteries of life and death are too powerful: we're here one day, gone the next - I just fervently hope that I'll be around long enough to pass on to my daughter the legacy of wisdom I've inherited from my father.

It's best to enjoy the little, simple nuances of life as we go about our journey. We are lucky enough that physically, our journey takes place on a Mediterranean island, which surely is an added bonus, for at least we can undertake the arduous spiritual journey in a bikini (and sunscreen). We only have one life. We have to live it at this very moment.