This midterm holiday we decided to go away for a break and have a proper rest. Our summer holidays are generally full of visiting relatives and friends (which is great but at times exhausting) and trying to entertain three boys with very different interests in a very hot climate. As much as we look forward to the summer holidays, I am usually counting the minutes down to school starting again a week or so in. Since we moved to Gibraltar, we have regularly taken a few days to drive up the coast (the Costa del Sol) during midterm. This year we landed in a resort by the beach just outside Marbella. As you can see above, we haven’t exactly had beach weather, but we’ve still had a great time. 

 There’s been lots of sleeping, exercise (2 Zumba sessions and an Aquafit class so far – got to counteract the wine & chocolate somehow), eating, reading and crochet. It’s been bliss (between the sibling arguments which go hand in hand with family holidays).

This morning, while Mr Postcard played chess with our two eldest boys, I went for a walk on the beach with our youngest. It was beautiful although perhaps more North Sea or Irish Sea than Mediterranean Sea in appearance. 

 
We collected sticks and wrote in the sand…

Then something caught my eye – can you spot the green plastic in the sea in the photo above? ‘What a shame’ I thought at first, ‘it’s spoiled my photo’. But then I thought actually, that’s really bad it shouldn’t be in the sea in the first place. Then I took a closer look around, and there was loads more plastic. My son then found a stick for his collection and it had fishing line caught up around it.

Together, we managed to gather this pile of rubbish, including plastic bottle tops, lolly sticks, cellophane, netting, polystyrene and the plastic used to join drinks cans together.

This little lot was gathered from an area of approximately 1.5 square metres. 

   
Isn’t that sad? Appalling even? If we could gather that much rubbish in moments from a tiny part of the beach what else must be out there damaging the environment and killing the wildlife. I’m truly disgusted that my fellow human beings could be so careless with our environment. 

That walk on the beach this morning taught us more than just how good it is to stretch our legs and take in the sea air. It showed us just how fragile our environment is. The little pile of rubbish we collected and disposed of doesn’t even scratch the surface of the problem, but hopefully my boys will now appreciate how easy it is to damage our beautiful environment and will grow up doing their ‘bit’ to help.