I fought the jelly fish... the jelly fish won :(

I’d like to tell you the story of my jelly fish sting if that’s OK, but I need to tell you a bit about my hotel first, the two are linked. Malta is lovely, really enjoyed it, but for future reference when it comes to hotels you definitely get what you pay for and we didn’t pay much. There was nothing in particular that I can whinge about – just that there were lots of slightly not right things that added up to make a less than pleasant hotel experience. The worst thing though was the pool. Take into account that this place was hot, like hotter than I have ever been in my life, I got through 2 pairs of boxer shorts a day – it was that hot… I’m sure you can imagine that there is nothing nicer on a day that hot than taking an occasional dip in the hotel pool. Well in our hotel that wasn’t the case. Put it this way, if I’m in a swimming pool I like to be able to see the bottom, not have the case where the water is so murky that you can’t. Plus, no offence, but I’m not that keen on children… what?.. and the pool was full of them, heaving, teaming even, hundreds of them!!

So whenever we got too hot we had to climb 4 flights of sticky stairs (the lifts were a little unreliable) wend our way through miles of dark corridors (being dark was good because it meant you couldn’t see what it was on the floor that crunched) and into our room (mercifully air-conditioned except that the maid kept turning it off) and into the shower. The shower was a bit of a gamble because you either got cold water out of both taps – or, bizarrely, hot water out of both taps.

Anyway, so when we went on a outing one day and came to the most beautiful beach in the world, barely a soul in sight you could imagine how much I wanted to get into the water. We paddled for a little while (I’m a wimp so I can’t consider getting straight in) and then I decided to wander over to the second little bit of beach where there was a swimming area marked out. Now in Malta the beaches are nearly all rocky and as discussed I’m a bit of a wimp, so getting into the sea is made even more difficult than usual. 15 minutes later I’d done that whole creeping-along-the-stones-on-all-fours-whingeing-like-little-girl thing and had eventually managed to immerse myself in the water. And, it was wonderful, really beautiful, totally clear, loads of fish, warm, truly fantastic, just for a moment the world disappeared and I was at peace. I say just for a moment because it was at that moment that, doing breast stroke, I put my arm through a jellyfish. Now I’ve never been stung by a jellyfish before, but let me tell you that you instantly have no doubt about what has happened. I’ve never been electrocuted, but I guess it must be similar, basically it really really hurts, really. So suddenly, I completely forget that I’m a little girl when it comes to crossing a stony beach, I was back to shore across the beach and into the nearest restaurant in, like, record time.

I managed to find a friendly Maltese local, “I’ve just been stung by a jellyfish” say I “what should I do?” I don’t know what I expected his response to be, maybe to turn ashen white and phone an ambulance, or perhaps a priest to administer last rites or something… What I didn’t expect was for him to say, “jellyfish, yeah we have hundreds of them, you should be careful!” No way dude! You’re kidding! And you let people swim are you mental?!

Anyway he sends me into the café and the waitress there tells me that I should pour vinegar on it, vinegar, balsamic vinegar to be precise, and mop it up with a cloth. Then her mate pipes up reckoning that vinegar is no good, and that olive oil is the only solution. Now imagine the scene, I’m in a foreign country, I’m not fully acquainted with Maltese customs and here I am being told to marinate myself. Does Malta have a history of cannibalism? Who knows?! Anyway – I decided to have faith in them, they were obviously much wiser than me, and so I coated my arm in salad dressing. Nice.

Now the point is this, I had no idea how to cope with a jellyfish sting, not a clue. I had to have faith in the locals, they knew what to do – did vinegar and olive oil help? Well, to be honest, I really don’t think so, it still hurt like crazy, and now I was dark brown from the vinegar and the oil was making my skin bubble in the sun. What would have really helped was if I had worn a wet suit! If someone had told me that the water was teeming with poxy jellyfish and I could have coated myself with neoprene – or ideally not gone out in the water at all. Olive oil and balsamic vinegar, I mean really!