Proust may have re-invented the madeleine as a pastry to the past and a cheap way to travel through time but for me I discovered that it was something else which worked and which appealed to quite another sense.
The multitude of pills that I am taking at the moment seem to be failing, signally, to get rid of my cough. During the day it is not too bad, but the evenings seem to produce a more insistent orchestration of guttural explosions. Something, in the immortal words of that philandering upper class parasite, Had To Be Done.
Toni is a great believer in medicinal syrup, though as one who has drunk the stuff in great quantities straight from the bottle I am not so convinced. The look, smell and viscosity always put me in mind of quack patent medicines - and they don’t work!
This weekend is supposed to be the period when the illness at last gives way and departs from hence. The cough seems to have no intention of leaving so I was not looking forward to another unsettled night. It was then that Toni suggested Vick’s Vapour Rub.
And if that doesn’t take you back then nothing written about by a recluse in a cork lined room will!
Apart from the fact that the Vick bottles that I remember were made of glass rather than plastic everything about the experience took me back instantly to my childhood.
Vick and TCP have one thing in common: you know they are working because they hurt!
Vick, applied liberally on the chest has just a pleasant tingling feeling, but as I recall it was also pushed up my nose and I was given a stinging ‘moustache’ of Vick as well. It’s uncomfortable: it must be working!
I’m not sure that it did but it was worth it for the revisiting of times past and the comforting sharp aroma of illness being confronted.
The sunshine has disappeared today and been replaced by the bright dullness which is a bit of a feature of this winter. Now “bright dullness” is obviously better than dull dullness, but I am looking for streaming sunlight as I feel that my vitamin D levels are dangerously low!
Today is the first day of the Using of the Bike as part of the new approach to exercise. Unfortunately the tyres are a bit flat and we will see how long it takes me to find the pump and bring the air up to the required pressure!
Before any of this happens I have to get some sort of screen to protect the bike from the lustful eyes of the roving thieves who prowl around our neighbourhood seeking what they might acquire.
Back to Gavá for stuff!
The multitude of pills that I am taking at the moment seem to be failing, signally, to get rid of my cough. During the day it is not too bad, but the evenings seem to produce a more insistent orchestration of guttural explosions. Something, in the immortal words of that philandering upper class parasite, Had To Be Done.
Toni is a great believer in medicinal syrup, though as one who has drunk the stuff in great quantities straight from the bottle I am not so convinced. The look, smell and viscosity always put me in mind of quack patent medicines - and they don’t work!
This weekend is supposed to be the period when the illness at last gives way and departs from hence. The cough seems to have no intention of leaving so I was not looking forward to another unsettled night. It was then that Toni suggested Vick’s Vapour Rub.
And if that doesn’t take you back then nothing written about by a recluse in a cork lined room will!
Apart from the fact that the Vick bottles that I remember were made of glass rather than plastic everything about the experience took me back instantly to my childhood.
Vick and TCP have one thing in common: you know they are working because they hurt!
Vick, applied liberally on the chest has just a pleasant tingling feeling, but as I recall it was also pushed up my nose and I was given a stinging ‘moustache’ of Vick as well. It’s uncomfortable: it must be working!
I’m not sure that it did but it was worth it for the revisiting of times past and the comforting sharp aroma of illness being confronted.
The sunshine has disappeared today and been replaced by the bright dullness which is a bit of a feature of this winter. Now “bright dullness” is obviously better than dull dullness, but I am looking for streaming sunlight as I feel that my vitamin D levels are dangerously low!
Today is the first day of the Using of the Bike as part of the new approach to exercise. Unfortunately the tyres are a bit flat and we will see how long it takes me to find the pump and bring the air up to the required pressure!
Before any of this happens I have to get some sort of screen to protect the bike from the lustful eyes of the roving thieves who prowl around our neighbourhood seeking what they might acquire.
Back to Gavá for stuff!
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