Sun, sea and sand.

I am seated on a beach that is quiet for as far as the eye can see. A few lone figures, strangers blotting the landscape walk towards some invisible location. To my right, the sun shimmers off the tide that licks the shore.

Ahead, the sea roars as it casts its gun-metal gray waves forward to reclaim what it lost only a few hours ago. The tide. ordered to flow after having just ebbed, obeys and greedily swallows up the shells of marine animals that the ea gulls have feasted upon. High above, they squawk their thanks lazily.

Behind me, a row of stodgy apartment blocks gaze upon 200m or so worth of beach. From afar, they must look like a row of bad teeth jutting out of the land. I keep them behind me so I don’t have to look at them and enjoy my little corner of the this sand-filled carpet of pleasure and relaxation.

The sensation of familiarity came when I first placed my feet on the sand. There are gentle pinpricks of delight as the grains scramble to support my weight. I flex my toes and a sensation of tepid ground surrounds my feet. I take a few steps, my legs pounding the golden flour, my heels sinking as I rock on my soles, my soul breathing in all that it sees.

The surface of the beach is flat, baked into shape by the persistent rays of a sun that is caught behind one cloud after another. A few foot, and paw, prints crudely interrupt this. I step on one footprint, obliterating it from the sands of time before the elements do.

I close my eyes and can just about hear the cries of children dashing past as we played on a beach in a summer that seemed to last forever. We would run into the waves of a warm Mediterranean, playing, laughing and teasing one another before being called by an irate parent or two because we had been studiously ignoring them and they wanted to get back home in time to watch the news.

Here, in Le Touquet, France, there are no such cries for the beach is much larger than anything in Malta and the children who are playing do not venture into the sea which is rather more ominous-looking than the Med is.

Life as an Expat, I realise, is all about recognising why the unfamiliar can be treated with a certain amount of familiarity.

Enjoyed a beach somewhere? Leave a comment and tell us about it!