Marine Biology

After wandering miles through the Turia park, we find ourselves at the stunning series of buildings which makes up the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias. It's now 2pm, so we have an intense sisterly discussion about the best way to spend our afternoon, and Oceanografic wins out. It's my absolute favourite kind of place - close-up encounters with weird and wonderful living things. The only difference between this and my workplace is that these particular beasts cannot harm me, as they are encased in glass which appears to be at least six inches thick.

We save the shark encounter tunnels until last, fortified by tea and muffins at one of the cafes nearby. The noise levels in these underground channels are considerably higher than anywhere else on site, as children, their parents - heck, and us too! - squeal with alarm when these predatory machines zoom towards us with apparent malevolent intent.

One of my sisters sees a shark with a slender fish seemingly floating immediately above it, and asks me what it is doing. I glance across in the direction she is indicating. "Oh, that's a remora" I reply. "It's a parasitic sucker fish which attaches itself to sharks". "Why does it do that?" she enquires, interestedly. "It's a relationship of mutual benefit," I explain. "The remora is protected by the sleek, powerful shark, feeding off scraps of food from its kills; and in return provides some basic maintenance and grooming functions".

My sister is impressed. "I didn't know you knew so much about these things!" she says. "You sound like a marine biologist". "Ah. Mmmmm. It's an area of particular interest," I reply.

I became an expert on shark sucker fish about four years ago, when I finally realised the true nature of the relationship between myself and a female colleague - that she had parasitically attached herself to me, relentlessly grooming me without actually even liking me. Realising what she really was came as quite a shock...

Giving her a name which better reflected her personality helped me to finally detach myself from her influence. I still avoid saying her name out loud to others; and in this blog I refer to by Another Name (the challenge is to guess which one.....); but in my own mind she is, and will always be, known as Remora.