I'm suffering from hay fever - I'm convinced. I can't get hay fever, my specialist told me so, as I spent my childhood making hay, really, making hay on a farm. Thatwas even though I have vivid memories of "summer colds".
It feels like a cold - a slightly runny nose, a slightly sore eye, a touch of sinusitis. But it's not a cold, not the way I remember them. Colds, I seem to remember, get in your head too. The virus plays havoc with your mind, wipes your memory and makes you miserable all round.
This is uncomfortable and the sore eye is the same as I had before we got this diagnosed, got the diet right.
It's been a funny old week. I went on a conference at the weekend and it included a formal dinner. These are the worst - no menu choice, no chance to cook it yourself and, as usual, they had utterly ignored the dietary advice I sent through. Nevertheless they agreed to whip up a salmon which arrived dressed in parsley and dill. Not too bad.
On the strength of that promise I tackled the starter. Again no choice. It was melon, strawberry, lots of sweet fruits, all inedible. I ate the melon. And I drank a lot of whisky.
No serious problems although I was tired the next day. But the only meat I ate throughout was fish. I thought we were doing well at home too this week - quite a lot of fish in the diet. So why have I now got hay fever?
Well tonight they served up, from the freezer what looked like chips but were in fact those spicy potatoes in their skins that you get at Harvester. That cannot have helped.
Nevertheless I just find it funny that I should suffer from hay fever during the hay fever season. it wasn't like this during the winter - a stuffy nose yes, but not a runny one and not the sore eye, which has now returned. The other day we went out to lunch and our hostess served a Greek-style lunch. Lots of delicious salads and olive oil. Then later, as I sniffed away, she asked me if I suffered from hay fever.
So this is my theory. Hay fever sufferers react to pollen in the atmosphere. But in the city in the spring time there is other particulate matter in the atmosphere - namely grass cuttings, hedge trimmings etc So maybe that causes a kind of pseudo-hay fever.
