Gooseberry Jelly

I had wanted to go out a ride this morning as there was an organised one from Leeds for people from yesterday's conference. It's the Tour de France tomorrow though and we have a wee bit of an epic ride organised to see it in a few places. Rosemary organised a trip to the beach near Hull instead.

On the way, the first bit of excitement was seeing Team BMC out for a warm-up ride. We wouldn't have seen them if it hadn't been for a detour because of an oil slick on the motorway. It was quite a long journey and on arrival at the special beach, we found the road had collapsed due to an eroding cliff and signs saying there were unexploded bombs on the beach! Ha......the best plans! We headed along the coast a bit and found an access point to the beach and then got our swimmers on. Rosemary's mum parked herself on a rock and we went down the beach and into the North Sea.

It was cold at first, especially as we were wetsuitless in preparation for an open water race later in the month. Eeekkkk......stuff kept touching our hands! I occasionally felt threadlike stuff on my legs too, it was disconcerting and a bit freaky! We didn't like it. Even worse, visibility in the water was nil so we couldn't see what was beneath us! The swim was sort of fun but I was kinda pleased to get out after 30mins. Up the beach, a little marble like translucent jelly fell out of Rosemary's swimmers.....then another and another! She was half laughing, half freaked out! I was just glad to see what had been touching us though and they didn't seem so bad. I found no jelly marbles in my trunks.

On getting home, the first thing I did was an internet search to find what these small gelatinous balls were! Eureka....they were Pleurobrachia bachei, commonly known as sea gooseberries. Whilst translucent out the water, they are meant to be stunning when seen in clear water. A video of them can be found here: http://youtu.be/fOJJxnNL4SY

After a cuppa and a biscuit we headed out for a run. Rosemary kept a constant pace and I did a kind of fartlek session. Because of the rain and heat, it had become very humid and I was finding the going very hard! My head felt like a rice boil in the bag but the legs kept going until the end of the tough session. It was brill that dinner was ready! When in Rome, eat pizza....when in Yorkshire, eat Yorkshire Puddings! Yummy!