Laid low this week with what the villagers call ‘appelkoossiekte‘ or ‘green apricot sickness’ along with spring hay fever. Sneezing and streaming and feverish, crawling in and out of bed and blankheaded as a sheet of paper.
[Sits and looks at desktop page for 20 minutes.]
Tonight we are giving a dinner party for a Sotho friend about to leave for Gauteng and I am hoping I can get through that without dissolving into a small puddle of wet tissues and delirium.
Outside the walls of my sickroom, the trees are fuzzing up green, the ditches white with arum lilies, lambs cavorting in the fields. New baby barn owls have been spotted in a gnarly crevice of the old oak down the road. The verges of the road are brilliant with tiny wild flowers, scarlet, blue and yellow, Nemesias, daisies, arctotis, the mauve wild garlic Tulbaghia.
In between making endless pots of tea, I am dipping into the Confessions of the wonderful St Augustine on his Feast Day, feeling about as unsaintly as you can get. A bit martyrish maybe.
“And men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, yet pass over the mystery of themselves without a thought.”
I hope you feel better very very soon. Is that snow on those flowers?
Yes, a smattering of snow — a friend emailed the pic to me. I do wish I could take some pics to show people what I see out here –
I wish you could too. It sounds so beautiful!
Why can’t you take pictures Mary? Because of anonymity?
Mary Christine and Lou — well, I couldn’t show pics of those closest to me except the Dog for reasons of anonymity, but I don’t have a camera or cell phone that takes pics and can be downloaded. And I have a pc with little memory so until I get upgrades I can’t walk around and take pics to post — it’ll happen in time.
Get well soon. Thank you for the quote from St Augustine – wonderful. I “semi retired” recently and people seem very disappointed I am not travelling the world. But I am happy writing, blogging, reading, jogging, golfing, thinking, contemplating, doing nothing.
Cleo, we all need to do different things at different times and paying attention to what is happening within is as important as actively doing other things.
You and me both.
I took mine to work. Which is not, really, very nice of me.
Get better soon!
Love,
T in J
Your spring is further along than mine down here — hope you feel better soon!
I hope that you will feel better soon. We are definitely getting rain from the TS today. Moisture streaming up from the Gulf. A good day to stay inside and play.
I’ll be glad when your hurricane season is at an end Syd — but staying indoors in rainy weather is a good idea!
I had my cold this week with a niece visiting us for surgery. It was my program working for me
care taking myself and others. I had to stop and step back at times to take care of myself so I could be of help to others.
If you have hay fever my allergies have dramatically lessened by eating local neighborhood honey everyday. In the past I suffered horribly with spring fever but today I don’t have these symptoms.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/5135837/Honey-the-sweetest-cure-for-hayfever.html
Dee that is such a good idea I asked someone to get me some this morning and I will make some hot drinks with it and have the honey on bread. Thanks so much.
usually takes a month or more to really begin to feel the benefits of the honey…