You Travel the World, Only to Find it’s More Dangerous At Home!

(written 8 July)

I’ve had a bit of a painful few days and figure the best way to deal with the pain is to laugh at myself. . .

I went to Slimbridge with mum, Steve, Jo and James on Sunday. We went up on the narrowboat and the weather was lovely. There were damselflies everywhere we looked, swans and swallows and all the wildlife you’d expect to see along a canal in summer. There were insects flying around the boat, including some big flies. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, my ankle suddenly felt like it was on fire. I’d been bitten by a horsefly. We didn’t have any antihistamine cream on board so I stuck my foot over the side of the boat and into the water. After the initial shock of the cold it felt at lot better. Well, if that’s the only thing that goes wrong then I don’t mind. Huh!

We got to Slimbridge and waited for Jo and James to arrive. I took Bea for a short walk and on our return to the boat I felt a sharp sting on my other foot – another fly got me! Damn. Both on the ankle-line where they’re likely to catch on socks and shoes. Oh well.

Mum put a chair out on the bank. We were right by the towpath and she put it on the other side of the path to the water. The path was quite narrow and quickly turned from grass to stinging nettles. It also sloped down towards a hedge which bordered fields. I decided to sit in the chair. It was a low chair so I sat down with some force. The chair, it turned out, was not at all well positioned and sloped backwards. So I sat down with great force on this chair that sloped backwards into a large patch of stinging nettles. The inevitable happened and gravity took hold. I fell over. I tumbled down the hill. I should mention that due to the gorgeous weather I was wearing shorts, a strappy te-shirt and sandals. So with as much skin exposed as is decent away from the beach I fell into a large patch of stinging nettles.

I was stunned, not in too much pain yet but knew it was on the way, and not really able to get up because of the steep slope. Mum saw me and came over to help but ended up almost falling on top of me. Eventually I got up. I was stung everywhere – arms, legs, feet, face, ear. The only place free of stings was my torso. I stood in shock with my skin beginning to burn. At first it didn’t look too bad but after a couple of minutes it began to redden. And hurt.

It hurt a lot. We had nothing on board to help and the only thing I could think of that might help were antihistamines. We called Jo to ask her to get some on her way up and then we just had to wait til they arrived. . . We waited and it began to hurt more and more. It was strange – my skin felt like it wasn’t part of me. It was as if something uncomfortable was touching me. As if carbonated water was being poured on me. It was a strange sensation.

We decided to have a bit to eat as I needed something to distract me but I lost my appetite. I decided I couldn’t wait until Jo and James arrived and suggested we walk to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust to see if they had any first aid that might help but when I got up to go I felt really nauseous and dizzy. I got a bit scared. It was a case of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing – I knew that people can react badly to stings, etc, and go into shock but I had no idea what the symptoms were so didn’t know if I was reacting as you should to such a large amount of stings or whether something bad was happening. Mum decided to find a doctor but couldn’t find any on call so ended up calling a paramedic.

He arrived really quickly and was lovely. I felt really stupid and like we were over-reacting but at the same time I felt quite ill and was glad to see someone who could help. He took a few vitals and decided I was fine, reacting as I should, and said the pain should clear in an hour to two. I didn’t, but I felt a lot better quite quickly.

As if that wasn’t enough, my body still swollen from the fly bites and red and irritated from stinging nettles, today I got stung by a bee! I was walking home from shopping when I saw a bee on the pavement. It was slowly crawling along, its back legs covered in pollen. It had gone a bit cool and I thought maybe it was exhausted and in any case it was likely to get stood on or run over if it stayed where it was. There were some flowers a few metres away and I decided to take it to them to hopefully get it some food/sunlight and out of the way of feet or tyres. It climbed on my shoe and I walked on. I looked down a few paces later to find it had clambered up my sock. Oh no you don’t, I thought. I bent down, lifted my sock away from me and tried to encourage it downwards. As it turned I felt a light scratch and thought, has it just stung me. I didn’t think it had and eventually got it off but quickly realised I had! The little blighter had stung me! It was on the outside of my leg and when I took a step pain suddenly surged around the area. I’d never been stung by a bee before and was surprised how deceptive the pain was. Everything was fine then when I flexed the surrounding muscles pain crippled me. I hobbled home, put some vinegar on it and let it rest for a bit.

So now I’m sitting here, covered in bites, insect stings and plant stings. I’ve been to the rainforest, I’ve been at sea, I’ve been on four continents (I think!) yet I’ve never been in so much pain from nature until I returned to England!