infection re-duk-shun

Reading about good health and nutrition is an interesting pastime, but merely reading about it won't actually in itself lead to great health. I think we can all two of us see where I'm going next.

On the whole, I'm quite well behaved about food. Vegetables, three meals a day, limited amounts of highly processed food. If you are a dieting type of person, then you would correctly observe that I'm not much of a portion control kind of person. If I like it, then I eat plenty of it. My main exercise is walking up the steepish hill to collect my son from his school. When I go to work I seem to run around a bit - I can feel myself get a shade heavier in the holidays. The pies I sometimes eat on busy work days when I make everyone else's lunch except my own may not be ideal, but at least it means I don't faint on the job.

I wish my main exercise was gardening but alas, this year I dream about the garden and look at it and hardly ever actually garden. This year I had to farm out my favourite and deeply symbolic mid winter job of planting garlic to my husband and children.

Last week and the week before, I was b-u-s-y. I got a cough and I kept on being busy. I struggled to get as many vegetables on the table as I usually manage but I kept on being busy. I woke up last Thursday feeling awful but, you know, I was b-u-s-y. People to see, jobs to do, sports to get other people to, meetings, blah blah. Not to mention the uber scary need to CLEAN the HOUSE as my parents were coming the next day for a whirlwind of more events and meetings and the like. No I would not take the day off work or off anything else for two and a half more days, by which time I badly badly badly needed to crawl into bed.

Which is, for the most part, where I've been ever since. Sometimes I get up and read or write on the computer, including times like now when I can't sleep. Being upright is a bit better than laying down anyway.

The cold wet river (think Waimakariri) which is the path way from my throat to my lungs is not quite so cold and wet feeling now as on Monday, but progress is ridiculously slow. I thought not being a smoker would insulate me from such nonsense, but not so.

Anyway, some reflections on the things which are cheap and helping me. I could get out of the way first the expensive vitamins which are helping me and the also expensive Malcolm Harkers eutherol and emphysemol which is helping me.

Miners Lettuce is my new rocket. I still have rocket but miners lettuce has good vitamin c according to the comments here and it is also closer to the back door than my rocket.

The anti-flu concoction I made earlier in the year with apple cider vinegar, garlic, cayenne pepper and honey is wonderful stuff. I drink it with blackcurrant and apple juice. It has excellent expectorant properties. I could talk about lemon/honey/ginger drinks but mostly I can't be bothered making them so not so powerful. I have been using coconut oil, which is expensive if you go to buy a big jar of organic cold pressed coconut oil for the first time but it does last for ages if you primarily use it as medicine not as food. I found some olbas oil so I mixed some of that into the coconut oil and massaged it onto my chest and the soles of my feet. Coconut oil is, amonst its other virtues, antiviral. I've put hydrogen peroxide ($2.70 for a 100ml bottle) on a cotton wool ball and squeezed it down my ears and I think that helped a bit. Fizzy fizzy fizz fizz pop.

I think that did some good. The best thing though? Truly wonderful and cheap and lasts for years and years and years?

Hot water bottle. Finally thought of it last night after a day with no luck trying to warm my feet despite having a warm house and a warm rest of my body. I think the wet feet thing is to do with infections - I remember taking FH to the reflexologist a few winters ago when he had this same chest infection thing I've got and she talked about him having wet feet and that being the infection. Anyway I half filled my hot water bottle with hot water and took it to bed and finally, some joy.

Hot water bottles are king and queen. Maybe even God. Give one at Christmas to all your nieces and nephew or cousins or anyone who is young and going flatting/leaving home/moving to London/getting married and you want to play wise and embarassing nana to.

So there you go. That is my life at the moment. Up at the wrong time, down at the wrong time, slowly returning to health. I seriously want to get better as I have a conference in Christchurch next week and I haven't been away without my husband and children for EIGHT years.

It isn't a head cold though and so my brain works not too far from capacity and I do want to get a blog post out this week on one of the favourite real people in my imaginary life. No that wasn't a typo or unintended construction error. I want to introduce Mrs Janet Watson, late of Queenstown and Naseby. I've been carrying her around in a box for 14 years now. It is time to get her out and tell her story.

Comments

Christopher said…
Just a tip - I use Malcom Harkers stuff - it's absolutely brilliant, but he has gone into bankruptcy sadly so you'll need to stock up!
許瑋菁 said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Sandra said…
I had heard that Christopher. I stocked up a bit when I first heard. Really hoping it gets resurrected somehow. His stuff is wonderful.

Popular posts from this blog

McCalls 7288 & altered Style Arc Barb pants

Livingstone daisies

Heartburn & Paris Etc