No place for a sand castle

Abstract

A family trip to the seaside, and specifically to a sandy beach, with all the experiences this entails, such as building sand castles, younger children wearing arm bands and the applying generous dollops of sunscreen cream, is perhaps one of the most enduring of children’s memories, which they subsequently pass on to successive generations later in life. But nowadays, most Maltese families embark on their weekly trip to the seaside on Sunday mornings, negotiating traffic snarl-ups and countless other obstacles, only to be confronted by a chronic lack of space on the most coveted of their beach haunts. No matter how early in the morning these families arrive at the seaside, it seems the beach ‘concession’ operator has already beat them to it, as the entire shoreline is tightly packed with beach furniture from the very early post-dawn hours.