By Stefano Blanca Sciacaluga

This article follows from The Llanito and the Beach published on the 20th of July 2015

It's been a few weeks since I wrote about the Llanito at the beach and of course, seeing as it's only August and our summers run well into September and beyond, I have gone to the beach a few more times and I realised there were a few things I had completely missed. Perhaps because they are a little harder to spot or a little less in your face but they're there nonetheless, or maybe just at Eastern Beach, I'm not sure, I'll let somebody else talk about El Quarry and elsewhere.

Just yesterday I was at a children's birthday party at the beach. I love birthday parties, it's like the only time when everybody eats, y'know? People will end up completely bloated and carry on eating, Christmas style. And it doesn't really help that the beach is not only the place where people go to stay cool and socialise. First come the biscuits, like I previously mentioned, then the thermos flask and then before you know it the kids have roped you into having carbonated liquid rubbish, a chocolate, sweets and a frozen Sun Top. And everybody knows which is the best frozen Sun Top. Gibraltarians have consumed so many Sun Tops that we know which are the best in each state (from warm, just put in the fridge, to frozen solid) and we stick by our choices. I think having frozen and sold Sun Tops at a kiosk for a whole summer I truly know which is the best, but I'm not ready to argue. Of course, this isn't counting on that one person in the family that comes later on in the afternoon, conveniently in time for tea, and brings milhojas, japonesas and ridiculously sticky merengues from the two weird truck things on the road, in direct competition, at about fifteen degrees higher than they should ever be. And what about when the Gib Cart was about? And all of this is on a regular day, so at a party things definitely get out of control, it's a step further. I'm thinking: a lot of children with chocolate all around their mouths, hands and even in places where in any other situation it would be impossible to find food, like the back of the knees.

Ve y enjuagate en la orilla. If you're lucky, like was the case yesterday, the water's nice and cool, and calm, and the kids can run to the shore before their little feet burn and get cleaned up before inevitably (and mysteriously) ending up covered in sand less than five minutes later. Because that's what kids love to do, actually, like the Haribo song says, kids AND grown ups love it so; because let's face it, who doesn't love building a sandcastle or digging a huge hole? I think I'm constantly more excited about those kind of things than the children.

But there are two things that are a complete party pooper for the children: the sea being rough and the presence of jellyfish. Because if there are waves you are either too young to be in them - and if you are one of those Mediterranean fish children, like I was, you'll want to be in there until you're trembling and your lips are purple - or you're a little older (say over ten) and you've got your mother just standing there looking at your every move as the waves are beating you up. You can see her and she can see you and she's doing all these hand gestures that you're pretending you cannot see, even if you've had your eyes tested and you have great vision. But you just lock eyes a bunch of times and keep getting hit by the waves. And then there's what seems to be a relatively new development in Gibraltar. Because I can't really remember ever seeing that many jellyfish when I was growing up; I'd say a lot more people thought they saw a shark than they actually saw a jelly fish. But they're around a lot these days and I think they really like Eastern Beach, because there hasn't been a single time I've gone this year that someone hasn't screamed for what they thought was a jellyfish (Eroski plastic bag).

And yes, hand in hand with the jellyfish is my favourite of all summer characters. Sometimes in his 20s but mostly somewhere between thirteen and nineteen, in other words, definitely a cool teenager. And he (because it's almost never girls) has one of those nets on a stick and with a group of babies (four, five, six year olds) behind him, and a group of adults even further behind, he's poking at the jellyfish in the water, to scoop them out in the net, put them in a bucket and have an immense sense of accomplishment. I saw it last year and I've seen it a bunch this year, no falla. But what would we do without our saviour? No, not Jesus Christ, our beach saviour. I can't even start to imagine what a nightmare trip to the beach it would be with three more jellyfish in the water. Because after all, and I'm not knocking our hero, he's not really scooping out that many; the hype, and attention he's getting is much bigger than the good he is doing. I don't know how intelligent these creatures are but if that were, say, monkeys our hero wouldn't survive. But at the end of the day I'm thankful for our jelly-catchers. They do a good job. They mean well and I haven't been stung yet this year, or ever, as far as I can remember. So a round of applause for these Quicksilver-wearing hunters. Who would help us if it wasn't for these guys?

If you grew up in the 90s you most definitely saw Baywatch on TV, and boy was I shocked to realise, years later, that our lifeguards were nothing like Mitch Buchannon and friends. On the show they were heroes, in real life, on Eastern Beach, they are hungover teens that I used to watch "train" when I worked in the Latino's kiosk. The money's good (or so I hear), the job seems easy because everybody is so protective of their kids and let's face it, how cool do these kids look in their red shorts and t-shirt, with those floating devices (when and if they still use them); so it's no surprise that the lifeguards spend a lot of their time round the back, keeping an eye on the shorvo who stop by their post, pelando la pava whilst our jelly heroes risk having to find someone to pee on them. They're not even making sure that the chulitos on the shore aren't knocking kids over with their game of keep it up (when there's a bunch of empty spaces down the end of the beach to play football in).

But I'll tell you what, I'm glad all of this happens. It really makes us who we are. All of these things have created extremely fond memories that I'm glad I have; I really can't imagine my childhood without el mar de levante.