The seaside: Truly Great, or Truly Evil?

So the other day I went to the beach.
Ahh the beach. A lovely place where you spend your time lounging around reading, splashing in the sea and having a picnic. Your childhood memories of the Seaside include building sandcastles (possibly with moats), burying a brother/sister/parent and making holes under others' towels. (And in fact, pretty much everywhere. A much-loved memory involves making a gargantuan hole in the sand with my dad and my sister. It really was huge.)
But, not only are there lovely things about the beach, but going to one again reminded me of the not quite so lovely things. And there are quite a few.

Number one.. The Sand. One thing I most definately prefer is a pebbly beach. It may hurt your feet, you may not be able to build sandcastles, but you don't get sand weighing you down.
Seriously now, sand gets absolutely everywhere! And I mean every single nook and cranny. You will find remenants on sand for weeks afterwards. I think perhaps the worst bit is when you go to the toilet and find that there is sand encrusted into your pant-line and beyond. Not good.
The next, and probably my pet peeve about going to the beach, is the stupid amount of money you have to pay for food. This is why I bring a picnic. (And then you can have whatever you like!) And not only are ice creams expensive, but if its even a slightly warmer than average day, your ice creams will melt stupidly quickly.

Another thing, that frankly, I'm not too worried about, but I guess that others will be, is that at the beach, you would think you would get exercise (only from going in the sea and actually swimming mind you, turning over onto your front does not count as exercise). But, alas, with eating things such as the traditional ice creams and fish and chips, it does cancel it out a bit. Shame really. Wouldn't it be lovely if ice creams had no calories? mmm.
It's just a vicious, vicious circle. Eat ice cream, exercise to work it off, ice cream as a reward.. etc. Bloody annoying.

Here's an anecdote from the last time I went to the beach:
There I was, minding my own business in the sea, splashing around. When a massive wave came over me and knocked me right over. This wasn't so bad, i just laughed it off, but I got up a little, onto my knees, just for another wave to smack me right in the head, also knocking me over. That's a little more embarrassing. Really? One wave after another? I think someone up there wanted to embarrass me.

So, is the beach great, or is it evil? Well, overall, it's pretty evil. Probably the spawn of satan. But we all love going there, even if you get sand in ridiculous places. So, a pretty cool spawn of satan? I think so.

Stacey.