I have decided to stick with the tactic of becoming nocturnal. In the wee hours of this morning, I managed to get a lot of work done. Then, the sun came up and the pollen made my eyes itch.
Then, I slept all day. (Ok, until mid-afternoon. Perhaps that isn’t all day.)
Today the pollen count is 6.6. It’s not a good number for me, but could be much worse. Anything that close to 7 makes me ill.
I have resorted to employing a tactic that worked reasonably well in previous pollen seasons. I’ve become nocturnal. The hope is that if I can sleep through the worst parts of day that has more pollen than I can handle – I’ll be ok.
The other half of the equation involves frantically trying to get work done in the wee hours of the morning, before I fall asleep.
The big rains from yesterday continued through this morning. It seems to have stopped for now. The plants, delighted by the excess water after the long drought, will start spewing pollen into the air very soon.
Right now, it is cold and grey outside. I am breathing reasonably well, but that will change if the sun activates the surrounding plant life. The pollen count listed above may turn out to be misleading.
We managed to make one more trip to the marketplace to stock up on provisions yesterday. The rain started shortly after we returned home.
It has been raining all night and through today, a good, strong, serious rain. With thunder! This blessed rain has not only knocked all the pollen out of the air, but also washed it off our vehicle, our home, and the streets.
Today I shall breathe very well indeed.
Today, the pollen count is 8.6. That’s not much better than yesterday’s 8.9.
I’m guessing the slight drop in pollen might be due to the small amount of rain we got today. It wasn’t enough rain to pull all the pollen out of the air, unfortunately.
I woke up with what I call “allergy face” – puffy face, eyes swollen and itchy. Going out in public like this tends to scare people (who assume I have a cold or flu or something they can catch from me.)
In the wee hours of the morning, I attempted to plan ahead. I was trying to get as much work done as possible before the sun came up and the pollen started spewing through the air.
I chose this moment to do an experiment. In the past, I’ve had odd reactions to coconut, once from coconut water and once from coconut in soap. Was it really an allergy? It was time to find out.
After two days of the pollen count at 7.8, it has jumped up to 8.1 today.
It was good we spent the last of our energy yesterday on obtaining enough provisions to sustain us for a week.
The “bug” my husband caught is still plaguing him. The pollen typically doesn’t affect him much, but it might today since it is so high and he is unwell.
I slept for a remarkable number of hours again, and woke up very sick. My eyes are itching. Fortunately, we have remedies for that.
My husband reminded me that today is the Valentine day. This custom is not one we celebrate, but the locals here clearly feel it is very important to participate in.
The pollen count is 7.8 for two days in a row.
I have slept a ridiculous amount of hours in a row, and my husband is sick with some kind of coughing “bug”.
We are out of provisions and too sick to obtain more right now. Thankfully, my husband braved the pollen count and brought home a meal for us.
After about a week of mostly rainy days, the sun has decided come out.
ALL the plants are spewing pollen like mad, trying to make up for what the rain took out of the air.
Yesterday, my husband and I went into our backyard to pick up a bunch of lemons that our tree dropped. It’s been raining quite a bit, and this particular lemon tree is unnaturally abundant.
Ideally, we should have been picking up the lemons more often. But, its been raining a lot, and we didn’t, so several of them got moldy. Even so, there were a surprising amount of good lemons out there. We kept some for ourselves, gave some to the neighbors, and put the rest on a “free table”.
I’m allergic to mold. I remember telling my acupuncturist that I wanted to rip all the green out of the yard before the spring pollen season started. She warned me not to do that, or, if I must, to do it with a mask on (like, a painter’s mask, or the masks the doctor’s office gives you if you come in with a sinus infection.)
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