Stories from the Beach Pt 1 - 'Natural Encounter'

Philippa picked me up at noon, and we met the others at a packed, sunny beach. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but I’m not particularly confident around water. Or to put it another way, I’ve never learnt to swim. So I wandered around in my shorts while the others splashed and swam. Later, after a particularly embarrassing attempt at beach volleyball, I realised my shoulders were starting to burn, so I thought it best to cover up. When I put my shirt back on, something scratched my back.. I panicked and ripped my shirt off thinking it might be a bee, but when I looked over my shoulder there was something at least three inches long sitting on my back. I flicked it off thinking it was a caterpillar, but when I looked down it was a bloody LIZARD.
I panicked instantly thinking I was hours from a painful death, until I remembered there’s no indigenous venomous lizards in Britain. But then I thought ‘what if it’s foreign, and had snuck into the packet of strawberries we bought from the shop?’ and the panic returned. As I approached hyperventilation, someone pointed out that the strawberries were grown on a farm two miles away, and that the lizard hadn’t bitten or scratched me anyway, so I started to feel a bit better.
I’ve just spent two hours researching online just in case, and it looks like it’s something called a ’common lizard.’ Typical British name. There’s lots of them, so we call them a common lizard. Or maybe they normally hang around on commons. Either way it’s an uninspiring and unimaginative name.

This has reminded me why I used to spend all my spare time sitting indoors eating junk food. Anytime I venture outside, I seem to attract a bevy of vicious insects or invertebrates that would normally leave people alone. I must have some kind of ultraviolet target on me that only creatures armed with stings or poison can see.
I’d like to say I impressed Philippa with my bravery in the face of nature’s vicious onslaught, but in reality I’d say at least three hundred people heard me scream like a girl and start jumping around like a fox on broken glass.
David Attenborough I ain’t.

RC 4-7-10