Jellyfish and my bout of the collywobbles

When I first moved to the east Coast 20 years ago, I resolved to swim in the north Sea every single month. It wasn’t easy. november may have been on the chilly side, but December was bitter and January was freezing. And then things went from bad to worse: February was icy, March not far short of torture and in April I couldn’t even manage to whimper ‘It’s lovely once you’re in!’ because my jaws had stopped working.

Who was I trying to impress? I suppose I imagined a woman glimpsing the shivering figure emerging from the waves would be saying to herself: ‘What a heroic figure! now that’s what I call a real man!’

But, of course, she would be thinking nothing of the sort. ‘What a silly twerp! now that’s what I call a real idiot!’ would be closer to the truth.

As the years rolled by, my swimming season grew shorter and shorter. First, I trimmed the first four months off the year, then the last three. And still it continues to contract.

This year, I’m ashamed to say, I looked out at the grey, angry sea in May and decided to put it off for a week or two. Somehow, June came and went, and I still hadn’t taken the plunge.

Then came the sunny spell in July and suddenly a dip in the deep blue sea became the most enticing prospect known to Man. So I dug out my swimming trunks and found myself a towel.

But what was this? Looking out of my bedroom window, I noticed that though there were lots of holidaymakers sunning themselves on the beach, not one of them was actually swimming.

Suddenly, I felt my old bullishness welling up. ‘how spineless, to be so close to the sea and not to take a dip!’ I thought, scornfully. With that, I strode out, determined to set a good example.

I had been in the sea for less than a minute before it happened. After a single stroke, I felt something squidgy knock against my outstretched hand.

And then, a few strokes later, something else. And what was that brushing against my elbow? At this point I looked around me and saw I was surrounded by little jellyfish, each one the size of a miniature whoopee cushion.

Anyone who has seen the film Zulu will know how I felt. I was surrounded by troops of jellyfish, silently advancing. Or were they advancing?

One of the many funny things about jellyfish is that they seem content just to float around, with no particular plan in mind. They lack ambition. It always used to be said jellyfish simply drift about aimlessly, pushed hither and thither by the current, the marine equivalent of hippies.

But these days, jellyfish experts are coming round to the idea that they actually have some sense of get-up-and-go, and occasionally try to swim against the current. As a swimmer, my research indicates these flubbery interlopers make a beeline for us human beings, particularly when they think we are beginning to enjoy ourselves.

This means that the more you try to swim away from them, the more they gather around you, taunting you with the possibility of a sting. ‘Jellyfish! Jellyfish!’ I yelped at a fellow swimmer, echoing those panicky holidaymakers from Jaws.

‘Don’t worry. They only sting very slightly — no worse than nettles!’ he replied. But no one in their right mind goes into a bed of nettles for fun, so I speedily rushed to shore, my entire body tingling with imaginary stings. What is the point of these little jellyfish? A handbook tells me they have roamed the seas for at least 500 million years, possibly 700 million. You would have thought that in all that time they would have found something better to do.

My handbook also tells me, incidentally, that a group of jellyfish is called ‘a bloom’, which suggests they at least employ a good PR.

Where do they come from, and where do they go to? What do they want out of life? Once they have frightened all the humans away, do they shimmy onto the beach and make themselves at home?

Do they dry themselves with little jellyfish towels, then lie back and relax on little jellyfish sun loungers?

TheSe are questions only the experts can answer, but at the moment they are too busy sending out danger signals. experts at the Marine Conservation Society are warning that the rise in the number of jellyfish around the British coast ‘can no longer be ignored’.

elsewhere, there have been rumours of a summer invasion of giant killer jellyfish, some of them, according to one newspaper, ‘with deadly 160ft stinging tentacles, as long as five London buses’.

I’m only glad enid Blyton is no longer around to witness this panic. In her day, the worst that could happen at the seaside was that you might cough at an inopportune moment and find yourself kidnapped by a band of smugglers.

With this in mind, I’ve decided to put off my next dip until next year, or perhaps the year after.