Weather trumped work - at least
the academic sort – and we spent the morning on the beach. The weather varied from scorching sunshine to
cloud filtered mugginess. The other two
set off on a long hour duration walk while I slumped in my chair, occasionally
braving dead jellyfish to dip myself in the sea.
This year has seen a marked
increase in the number of jellyfishes rolling through the surf to die in the
shallows. At least we think they are
dead, once they are out of the water and stranded on drying sand they look
inoffensively inert.
Legend has it that jellyfish are
still poisonous even in death, with the chandelier-like stingers able to
inflict wounds on vulnerable flesh even when the malign force driving the
living creature is no more.
This morning, there were three
glistening ‘pimples’ with easy reach, occasionally washed by more adventurous
waves, but anchored on the littoral.
They were viewed with interest by the passing pedestrians promenading
along the water line, but it took a couple of young lads to do something about
it.
It is obvious that the younger
generation of beach dwellers have been deeply influenced by “Finding Nemo”,
especially in the sequence where his dad and the truly wonderful Dory met the
jellyfish when the dark (but safe) canyon is rejected in favour of the lighter,
higher (but fatal) shallower water. They
know that the dangling stings are painful, but they also know from having seen
it in the film that the rounded tops of the jellyfish are harmless. So, the lads made their hands into crane-like
grabs and lifted the blobs from their occasional sea-washed dampness to the
fatal embrace of the perennially dry soft sand.
I have to say that the visible
reminders of possible pain did not deter swimmers, including myself, from going
into the briny. I did “look about me” to
check if there were any obvious transparent dangers, but satisfied myself that
the odds of safety were on my side. And,
indeed, they have been so far this year as I have been signally un-stung. Though I am aware that last statement is a
hostage to fortune, especially given the prevalence of ghostly retribution
swimming about in the waves around us.
But I have faith.
Tomorrow, with a rare sense of
occasion, we have been invited out to a barbecue on the only day in recent
weeks that is scheduled to have thunderstorms.
Sometimes the irony of life is
too obvious to be funny.
