A dose of sunshine

England had a brief spell of summer in the last week and, unexpectedly, I found myself at the seaside all day. I had forgotten to pack any hyposensitive sun cream - after all there was little reason to believe we would have unbroken sunshine.

I popped into the beach shop and scanned the ingredients of a limited range of sun tan lotions. Carrot seemed possible - except I have no wish to sprout orange skin. They had an Aloha! oil made from aloe vera and promising Factor 15 protection. Apart from aloe there seemed nothing in the ingredients to cause problems and I reasoned an oil would be purer than a cream. I had studied a Nivea children's cream, which explicitly contained salicylate for some reason.

Now I have always avoided aloe. It doesn't appear on lists because you don't eat it but I tend to assume any unknown vegetable matter is risky. Without having a chance to check anything, I hoped it was made from a flower rather than anything else. I have now checked and that doesn't seem to be the case.

So does anybody know whether aloe contains salicylate?

Possibly not. I followed the instructions and applied it liberally throughout the day. There was no hives but when my knees reddened I could not be sure whether it was the cream or the sun.

Sometimes a gamble pays off. No sunburn and no discernible reactions, apart from a slight runny nose for the last couple of days - but that could be triggered by several factors.

Now I can look forward to the rest of the summer. Aloha!

RAS

Trying blue cheese

Some blue cheese appeared in our fridge. I used to eat a lot as it seemed like the only thing food I could eat with any taste.

Then The Splodge appeared on my chest. A dose of penicillin for a tooth infection led The Splodge to grow, covering much of my chest - and that led me to discover that the blue bits in Stilton cheese are actually penicillin. So blue cheese had to be abandoned and the  Splodge became Australia before finally being burnt off by the sun during our holiday last year.

With The Splodge well and truly gone I thought I might be safe to try a little cheese. Well The Splodge has not reappeared on my chest. But a red, scabby rash about the size of a finger-nail has appeared on my tummy. It could be a coincidence but I don't think I will risk it. No more blue cheese for a while, I think.

RAS

Pink fingers

Easter weekend was going to be challenging as we have had a great deal of family festivity. And we are enjoying an astonishing bout of late April sunshine - the air is awash with various kinds of seed, blossom and pollen. I don't get allergic hay fever, so I'm told - but I seem to get pseudo-hay fever caused by exposure to floating vegetable matter.

I've been taking montelukast daily for the last few days - and have also concentrated on eating fish - following the reappearance of the speckled rash on my belly as well as the odd symptom of sinusitis.

We went to a Thai restaurant, where I ordered prawn crackers, trout and egg fried rice. You never know for sure what other spices and herbs have been added - I was hoping not too many to these dishes.

When I pressed anything against my fingers during the meal, a bright pink rash appeared. At first I thought it was just my index finger, which I'd burnt on a light bulb the night before. I thought it was a kind of blistering - but it did not last long. However these rashes appeared on the fingers of both hands. They were a kind of bright pink - I tried to find the colour and consulted this site http://www.december.com/html/spec/color4.html. Spicy pink perhaps? Well it was a Thai restaurant.

Today there is no sign of this happening. Weird.

Using the ever-helpful Wikipedia I've found a benign condition called dermatographic urticaria. It seems the best explanation for the moment.

RAS

National Allergy Week

I've just discovered it's supposed to be National Allergy Week in the UK. That's the week after World Allergy Week - now that's excellent timing. In fact it's so well co-ordinated that the nation's allergy specialists declared their backing for World Allergy Week last week, missing out their own National Allergy Week.

Is it too much to hope that a national week is truly national and involves all parties? Even better that the national week takes place at the same time as the world week? If you follow these things even a little, you will know there's a surplus of special weeks and days - sometimes they seem little more than a PR stunt. So to make an impact, a Week needs a lot going for it. Two weeks on the same topic one after the other are guaranteed to flop.

So far as I can tell National Allergy Week centres on Allergy UK. I checked their Facebook page but there's nothing there. However their web-site has a press release, which reflects what the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology said last week.

In fact their entire PR strategy seems to centre on Weeks - three of them in the last year. This is the list of press releases on their site for the last 12 months. There's just five of them:

• National Allergy Week: 11th - 17th April 2011
• Food Allergy Intolerance Week: 24th - 28th January 2011
• Indoor Allergy Week: 25th - 29th October 2010
• Allergy Friendly Hotels
• National Allergy Week: 10th - 14th May 2010

For the record here is a list of the proposed weeks for the coming year:

• Indoor Allergy Week: 14th -20th November 2011
• Food Allergy and Intolerance Week: 23rd - 29th January 2012
• National Allergy Week: 23rd - 29th April 2012
• Indoor Allergy Week: 12th -18th November 2012

RAS

#worldallergyweek

I've been asked to support World Allergy Week by using the hashtag in the title. It doesn't seem to be getting going - and that's a shame.

Looking into this, I get the impression the week is driven by the World Allergy Organisation - which is mainly doctors. As these problems affect millions, especially at this time of year when hay fever gets going, isn't it about time the victims helped to get things going?

It's interesting when you look at the statement from the British Society for Allergy, reported here, that they are still at the stage of training GPs in diagnosis. Isn't that alarming? Most GPs probably do a little better by giving people prescriptions also. But I noted the World Allergy Organisation refers to "multiple organ" problems increasing. Now if you have salicylate hypersensitivity you know what that means .... everything from the eyes to the knees. That can mean a host of minor symptoms and, if you have to take them to the GP, you really need the doctor to understand the underlying issues.

RAS

World Allergy Week

Spring is stuttering into place in the UK. The trees and flowers are budding and blossoming while the weather alternates between hot and cold.

So, yes, it's a good time for World Allergy Week, which starts on Monday. To mark the occasion, I've remembered to get my repeat prescription, which I have managed without for several weeks.

Details here
RAS

Baked well tart

Much classic cooking is simply about creating different textures and combinations from basic ingredients such as flour, eggs, milk and water.

So we set about making a salicylate-free equivalent of the Bakewell Tart. And it worked.

Actually my other half did the work. I'm told this is what you do.

Partly cook a thin layer of pastry on the bottom of a baking pan.

Lay sliced Golden Delicious apple on top - and then plain cake mixture on top of that.

Bake.

Delicious!

It's not quite as jammy as proper Bakewell tart. We need some ideas. Perhaps prepare the apple beforehand and add some sugar?

* Talking of apple, we bought some cut-price green apples from Asda's. I was wondering why I had symptoms today - itching in various places and a strange bleed on the lip tonight. Then I realised that although they looked like Golden Delicious there was no guarantee they were. They tasted a little stronger than GD. They were probably something else such as Granny Smith.

I tend to live with mild symptoms without complaining - but maybe I should make more effort to identify what is causing them.

RAS

Cheap bananas

A few weeks ago I bought a big bag of market-price bananas from Tesco's. If you're lucky with these bananas they are edible. If you're unlucky they go off fast or fail to ripen properly. For a few pence, it's hit and miss.

These were large bananas and apparently just about ripe and at first quite edible. We put them in the fridge, where the skin turned brown but the inside stayed white.

Usable bananas are usually quite expensive and that's put me off experimenting with them. This was different. As time went by the flavour changed - they began to taste like the banana you get in tinned fruit salad, so far as I can recall tinned fruit salad. Not especially pleasant to eat raw.

I've tried cooking with bananas before. This time I fried up a mix of banana, golden delicious and tuna, with a little cabbage - then adding soy sauce for more flavour. I ate it with spaghetti. It was delicious, and, surprisingly, it tasted like curry. So maybe it would be even better with rice. I wonder how I can make it even more like curry. There is still the outstanding mystery of why tandoori appears on the diet list.

I used one for a banana split meal - with ice cream and cream. You could add chocolate sauce as well, I suppose.

After nearly two weeks, we used the last few bananas to make banana cake. Delicious and it lasted for a long time.

Now I wonder about fruit salad. I could make it with banana, golden delicious apple and green grapes. But I wonder where the juice would come from. Commercial salads often use a syrup - but the better quality ones use a fruit juice. Does anyone know how you could make a juice? I am thinking of a fruit salad with ice cream and cream. I am thinking and salivating.

RAS

Dark chocolate

I'm not addicted to chocolate - I'm not - but without coffee it's the only stimulant that can help with working. I've been trying to eat plain, dark chocolate because it's supposed to be better for you. And I tend to buy cheap 200g bars from Tesco or Asda.

The visit to the GP about the health check still hasn't happened -  but fitness and weight are now serious matters in my mind.Maybe some very dark chocolate would be the answer. It kills the appetite quicker than smoother, sweeter chocolates and should contain as much kick. It should be a way of cutting down fat and sugar intake. So a bar of Tesco 75% cocoa chocolate seemed a good idea.

In all this the research I did two years ago was forgotten. The problem is the darker the chocolate, the more the caffeine. 200g of plain chocolate is said to be equivalent to two cups of instant caffeinated coffee. Let's say the plain chocolate is 50% cocoa.  So 40g of 75 per cent cocoa chocolate would be about 60% of a cup of  caffeinated coffee.

And that's how it felt. Yes it killed the appetite and gave me a kick. It also gave the digestion a kick. It may be responsible for the ulcers in my mouth. It may also have triggered a bout of left-side syndrome (with gout in the left arm and leg and soreness in the eye.) It felt like the after-effects of drinking defac, filter coffee - which always seems to contain quite a lot of caffeine.

Tesco are now selling another brand of cheap, dark chocolate by Ryelands, and it's cheaper than Tesco's own brand. It claims to be about 50% cocoa. That's probably too strong but I'm trying it.

Depending how I get on with the doctor - if I ever get round to it - I may have to find a way of doing without chocolate.

RAS

Cookies

Sometimes I need a sharp reminder there's a problem. I normally assume cookies are okay. After all they are just dough and chocolate chips, aren't they? I've always loved them and cheap cookies from Tesco or Asda don't cause a problem.

Someone gave us a packet of Maryland cookies and I have been happily munching them - even in spite of the visit to the doctor I must arrange to discuss the health screening. I was wondering about the crunchy bits, especially as my throat is getting lumpy and my tongue feels funny. I have checked the packet - they are indeed choc chip and hazelnut cookies.

Reminder to me: nuts are a problem, a real problem. Now to find a montelukast.

* Ref that health check: a friend had an identical scary letter from the screening company received on the same day. He went rushing to his doctor only to be told his cholesterol was mildly elevated. No pills, no exercise prescription, nothing. On the other hand....I must do something about it.
RAS