I like The Allergies; however, I have been plagued by allergies for most of my life. I was told that I was allergic to Penicillin, I freaked out when I got the Polio vaccine, I’m allergic to cats and I have rhinitis. I went to the doctors as a kid and they did an allergy test on me by drawing a grid on my forearm and then scratching me with umpteen different things, almost everything turned red.

This year has been dreadful so far in regards to the amount of snot that my nose has managed to produce. In the morning I cough and splutter till I’m firing on all cylinders. The neighbours must think I’m dying in here if they hear me. Tissues, I have boxes and boxes of them, I’ve got shares in Kleenex.

Antihistamines are popped like sweets to try and control the onslaught and the flood of snot. It reminds me of Ren & Stimpy at times. I have many different kinds of antihistamines, Claratyne, Telfast, and a few other brands. I have had to rotate them because they stopped working for me.

In recent years I have also had problems with food. Life can be cruel at times, now I am unable to have chocolate. Memories of munching my way through a bar of Dairymilk with either a cup of tea or in more recent years, a glass of red wine are just figments on the ether.

When I came back from China after Covid, I sort of overdosed on many things that I had been unable to have while living there and chocolate was one of the first things to be worshipped. After a few months I began to get eye infections, things like stye’s and my eyes became more and more dry and my tears seemed to thicken. I went to a specialist and he scraped the inside of my eyelids and then gave me this regime of treatment to cure it. They improved slightly, and then one morning I was sitting outside wondering why my vision was blurred once more, trying to figure out what had I done or what I had eaten. I’d been at Aldi the previous day and I bought a packet of Orange Club Biscuits and I had scoffed at least two of them, they are really sweet.

This is where I made the connection between chocolate and the effect it has on my vision, my stomach also complained but I could handle that side effect. So now I have had another epiphany, it’s the cheese causing problems. I’ve been buying the mature cheddar cheese from Aldi for ages and I go through nearly 500g in just over a week, mind you I do share that with the birds too. Just over a week ago I stopped having cheese everyday and now a week later I have not had one antihistamine and I don’t have the snot problem. I get up in the morning and I might blow me nose and then it’s breakfast. I’m not coughing like a forty a day smoker filling up a spittoon. My eyes feel so much better. Chocolate and cheese are my Kryptonite. I know that old age brings its own issues along for the ride and so far, I have been lucky, but cheese and chocolate? How cruel!