There’s nothing like a bit of rain on the Maltese islands to remind you exactly why trees shouldn’t be cut down willy-nilly. Hot on the heels of the Mosta council announcing the trees residing in the Mosta square were to be saved, followed by a condescending statement published on their socials proclaiming that it was a shame they weren’t given enough time to implement what they wanted to before the indignation of half the country threw a spanner in the works, we got our first proper rainfall in months. As usual, it was a disaster.

Apart from the usual awful number of car accidents and Msida looking like it was auditioning to be part of an underwater city series, various places flooded, causing a lot of damage to parked cars. I saw a video taken minutes after the rain started in Mrieħel and was shocked to see cars bobbing around like apples in a barrel of water. And this was only after some minutes. Can you imagine how everything would have looked if the rain had been going on all night? There probably wouldn’t be anything left. It’s incredible how fragile our position is, how little we seem to realise it and how much we abuse it by not catering to the environment and space we have been given.

Our government is spending several hundreds of millions on infrastructure – where exactly is the money going? Surely, if you’re spending so much you should be able to factor in that the rains in our country tend to be pretty catastrophic. Msida has been a problem for years and years now and nothing has been done. I remember someone bringing it up on social media just last year and several people telling him in no uncertain terms that if the rain bothers him, he should stay at home.

Today, we just need to focus on being the biggest pig at the trough and taking whatever we can get- Anna Marie Galea

You’ve got to love the solutions the Maltese have taken to giving everything. Let’s not see the problem or talk about it; let’s not fix it and, instead, tell other people they are the problem. God forbid we seem ungrateful or point out any faults. To love your country the Maltese way means that you only speak about the good and tear down anything or anyone that says otherwise. How can abuse not be rife when such a mindset is the order of the day? It’s so sad and servile and allows others free range to do what they want.

It’s not rocket science; the more trees we rip down and the more we build, the more we lay down tarmac where fields used to be, the greater the problems when the rain inevitably finds us. Why does no one care about the long-term impact of what is obviously such lousy planning? It’s a pity that all the money we keep spending can’t buy us any common sense.

Everything we do is always surface; as long as we can present something shiny and new and spend thousands to inaugurate it while our friends clap and wolf down cut-price canapés, who cares about tomorrow? Tomorrow is someone else’s problem. Today, we just need to focus on being the biggest pig at the trough and taking whatever we can get.

We could have been great; we settled for the gutter.