Summer swimming but with a few jellyfish around. And can this help me be less grumpy in this latest "new normal"?
Summer swimming has been presenting a few challenges recently. Rather than dealing with extreme cold and freezing winds during my winter swims, I am now coping with jellyfish! These fascinating, unusual creatures show up unpredictably during our warmer months. I had a theory that they only appear when we are in a middle of an English heatwave, which proved correct during sunny June when I was lightly stung by a jellyfish that was caught up in seaweed. The sting only felt like a stinging nettle, which felt both reassuring and a reminder that jellyfish do exist here. Since then, the weather has cooled and jellyfish have been gloriously absent. Until last week, when I spent three mornings in the sea with my friend's nine year old daughter, Saskia. It was her first time swimming in the sea and I pledged to teach her to canoe while they were visiting. On the second day, I calmly spotted a jellyfish washing up towards the shallows of the beach, at which point Saskia leapt from the