The saga surrounding the works done at the Ta' Qali National Park has been one of the odder ones to afflict the Maltese Islands this summer.
It all started when popular actor, Thomas Camilleri, had shared a side by side image on his personal Facebook page: one of the picnic area in the Ta' Qali national park covered in grass, and another of the same area now covered in some sort of sand or gravel, and expressing his outrage at what the picnic area had been turned into.
The picnic area at the Ta' Qali National Park is one of the biggest such areas in the country. An open space which has always been a popular spot, it has in recent years also doubled up as a venue for major events and concerts.
The sandy intervention was not actually very recent - it was done back in July. Announcing it back then, Jason Micallef - who heads the section taking care of the Ta' Qali National Park - said on his personal Facebook page that sand, specifically for this purpose, had been imported from abroad and laid down so that the area is not beset by dust during spring and summer when there is no grass due to a lack of rainfall.
The Government this week described the sand as "a quality material that absorbs water and retains moisture, thereby protecting the underlying soil from drying out and turning into dust during summer."
"The benefit of this work is that natural grass grows at a much faster rate well before the onset of winter rains", it said.
Experts who have been interviewed or who have spoken out about the matter seem to disagree. Only time will tell which side of the coin was right.
But beyond the merits of what has been done at the picnic area, what is particularly shocking in this whole debacle is the behaviour of Jason Micallef himself. It appears that Micallef has chosen this pile of sand as his proverbial hill to die on.
His response to the criticism has been by crying "FAKE NEWS" (yes, in capital letters every time) and by promising to take legal action on apparently "failed" podcaster Trudy Kerr, who's only transgression was going to Ta' Qali and taking a video of herself saying that she was sad at the current state of the picnic area.
This isn't the response of a Government official - it's the response of a petulant child.
The merits or otherwise of the Government opting to place the sand in Ta' Qali can be discussed ad nauseum, and we will see whether it was the correct decision or not come the first shades of winter - but it is factual that the Government has indeed put sand there.
How can pointing that out, and providing an opinion that it doesn't look all that nice, be tantamount to something that is legally offensive? Micallef has resorted to threatening what is essentially a domestic SLAPP suit in order to try and intimidate anyone else who dares disagree with his work - dictatorial tendencies if they ever existed.
Prime Minister, Robert Abela, said when questioned that Micallef is a sensitive man who is fiercely protective of his project, but this is an absurd step to take, and it is pure folly.
One hopes that Micallef sees some sense and reneges on his decision to take legal action, and that as far as the action taken in Ta' Qali goes, they're the ones who will be proven right.