Self Defence

That is 'defence' as it is spelled here, for US readers :-)

I am in self-care mode today as the hottest day of the year is upon us. Supposed to be 28ish degrees (82ishF) here today. This has prompted a status yellow alert for extreme heat from Met Eireann. While I am delighted to live in a place where these temps are considered extreme, I also know that this is not a good day for me to be trying to venture outside for anything longer than a few minutes. We will probably run down to get some stuff from fruit and veg man in a while, but that is it for me. Ten minutes and then home again, where I will hunker down and defend myself against a hostile summer day.

The last time I was out in the sunshine and heat, I ended up in bed shivering, with a bad headache and nausea. Today will be hotter than that day was.

They also warned about pollen, so I looked that up and learned that while trees and grass are done and fading, respectively, we are now into high weed pollen season. Since my sinuses have been sending me messages about this lately, I am not surprised.

Nor was I surprised to learn that fungal spores are going crazy. I spent most of the weekend in bed with my eyes closed, whether awake or napping. I could not keep my eyes open because of the pressure in my head and stabbing pain behind my left eye. I felt like I was made of lead, my body ached, and I was so, so tired.

So, let's see--sunshine, heat, weed pollen, and fungal spores--definitely not my sort of day, but here it is. I have learned by now that if I simply try to push on normally, I will pay the price for it, so I will engage in some self-defence against this summer day. Summer makes me ill. I joke about not liking summer and I grumble about how hot it is when it is 60 and sunny, but underneath all of that is an awareness that I really have some uncomfortable physical problems with summer. There are reasons why I hate it.

In my search for a silver lining, I have found that the flip flops I found new at the charity shop last year for a euro and embellished have come in quite handy this summer.

I only wore them once or twice last summer because it was chilly most of the time. Even when it got summerlike in October, I did not wear them. I picked them up to use inside the house--they would be no good for the kind of walking we do. But I found I did not need them in Killybegs. I wore socks in the house or went barefoot. They are very handy here though. The bedrooms have carpet and the sitting room is wood flooring, but the rest of the floors are tile and they stay pretty cold even when it is hot outside. So putting a layer between my feet and the tiles is helpful. I had thought about donating these back to a charity shop since I was not using them. Now that I find them useful, I will keep them. I like them, but I will like even better the moment when they can go back into the closet because I no longer need them.

Hopefully this will be the hottest day of the year. Cooler weather and wonderful, magical, beautiful rain is supposed to arrive back in town by the end of the week. Yay!

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