why sinusitis is my illness of choice... or "is it april? must be time for sinusitis!"

erica's post on taking a more positive view on things has prompted me to try and look on the bright side and steer this blog into sunnier climes.

so when the creche cold (thanks w) resisted echinacea and ginger and lots of fluids and turned viciously into full blown sinusitis i resisted my usual eeyore view on things and tried to look for the positive.

so here are the top 10 reasons why i would tick the sinusitis box on the ill health menu:

1. it's much better than any gastro bug you would care to name
2. there's no consequential cleaning up (see 1)
3. it's cheaper to fix than toothache
4. you don't have to go to hospital
5. it doesn't hurt as much as labour or a broken bone
6. it's not fatal
7. cups of hot tea are part of the cure
8. although it is a seasonal affliction on the seahorsean schnozz, it's not a permanent feature
9. it's not as bad as morning sickness (see 1 and 2)
10. umm i'll get back to you on 10

despite 1-10 i wouldn't refuse judiciously offered sympathy especially as i was awake until 4 o'clock this morning trying to stop my face hurting and wondering if it was, in fact, toothache (if you've never had this affliction the pressure in your sinuses can build up and press on the nerves in your teeth which is most owwwy, especially in the murk midnight when sympathisers are few).

oh i just thought of #10 - my GP suggested that i have a scan done to see what's happening under the surface (i suspect they look like catacombs). i must confess that my first thought was that the ct film could make an interesting quilt - now there is nothing about gastro that you would want to turn into a quilt, hmmm?

how was that for looking on the bright side?

"i put your sleeping pills next to the white pepper"

quoth my daughter as she helped put the supermarket shopping away. i hastily point out that the sleeping pills in question are valerian - "prescribed" by my cruel psychiatrist as he declined politely my request for more stilnox.

i hvae been taking stilnox for about six months and have found the only side effect is extreme and overwhelming tiredness that lasts for about 6 hours and i wake feeling like i have slept the sleep of the just and unstressed. and i love it. which perhaps means i shouldn't have it for a while.

but i love it like a lover who is always there when needed, who does what you want and is above all reliable.

the first thing you notice is a slight tightening in the throat - which at first i found a bit claustrophobic and panicky. then the soft mist of oblivion rolls in - you lose awareness and control over your fingers, hands. the fog thickens around your mind, slackens your muscles and then overwhelms you.

i miss it

i've had some time now to start to process and reflect on the impact of my second trip to alice springs.

this time i was with my wonderful in-laws and my kids and got to explore more of the country and to see uluru and kata tjuta - both striking in their presence and tangible spirituality. like unexpected cathedrals they rise up from unremarkable, scrubby plains.

uluru i found almost frightening in its severe presence and size and the unexpectedness of it in the surrounding flatness.

it also had a weird over-familiarity that it seemed to resent - white australia has conscripted it for an icon when it is so much itself. kata tjuta i found more welcoming and accepting perhaps because it has less symbolic ownership by whitefellas.


i had the same feeling of desire for connection with the landscape that struck me so powerfully last year. The country, the colours and textures just blow me away – this might sound daft but I can also feel something that’s like a low vibration – not a sound but something like a frequency just out of range. i'm sure that this is because it is not my country. and yet it affects me like a deep continuous yearning – I want to go back and just sit and listen.

back on air

yikes - 2 weeks without a computer :( luckily 9 days of it were spent in central australia.

photos to come as will replies to emails (of which there are legion)