Walking on the Moon...

‘Watch out for jellyfish, don’t step on one, it’ll sting.’ My Mothers warning each and every time I ever stepped, bare footed, onto the beach. I never did step on one and I don’t know anyone who ever has – does anyone?

And then last week, washed up on the sand at the edge of the water, all silvery sheen and trailing tentacles, the gelatinous mass looking like a creature fallen to earth from outer space, a Moon - and I almost did.

I almost set foot on the Moon, well a Moon, almost walked on it, almost but not quite. The common jellyfish, a biggish one, almost a foot across, not the biggest on record, but big enough. Occasionally one will grow to four feet in length, Aurelia aurita, the common jellyfish, a Moon. Not dangerous like the Box or the Man of War, not a killer, but dangerous enough to cause a painful rash if you were to touch the tentacles.

I didn’t. I left it alone.

No bones, no brain, 95 per cent water, a little poison – the jellyfish, not me.

I found a huge Lion’s Mane jellyfish once; washed up on a Cornish beach, washed down from the arctic, an eight feet lump of fly covered yellowish jelly. And only a couple of weeks ago, mingled with the bladder wrack on Whistling Sands, thousand on thousand of tiny Saucers thrown up on the sandy shoreline, the sea full, the beach covered, their delicate pinkness turning to dull grey in the warm holiday sunshine.