One of those weekends . . .

A slightly watercolour-effect photo from Laugharne the other day.

We've had a slightly full-on weekend, very tiring, and sleep is at a premium where I am still struggling with my asthma and STILL on a full steroid dose, which isn't seeing me through 24 hours, so I am back to the GP today.  The crux of the problem now seems to be at least half (or more)from a leaky gut and low DAO enzyme levels, allowing histamine to flood my body from foodstuffs too - despite trying to eat a low-histamine diet.  (Update: just remembered what I ate yesterday and it was Dairy that was the culprit - I had two choc ices and then some ice cream at teatime, THEN a piece of cheese later on.  I have had a break from the probiotics for a week too, and my gut microflora report showed there were several gut "friends" which should be in my gut and there isn't ONE of them, Lactobacillus family included.

We had a Flood on Saturday night. Keith was in the bath - we both twigged to it at the same time as gallons of water hit the kitchen floor (via the airing cupboard and contents). He carried on laying in the bath, shouting instructions. Pull the switch in the attic, he said. In full panic mode (no half-measures, gallons of water pouring through house!) I shot upstairs and flung open the huge doors which hide the header tank etc in the attic. No sign of any switch, pull cord, whatever - moved a couple of things, no good. For some reason it did NOT occur to me to put end of pipe with water pouring out of it BACK INTO THE TANK. WHY? Because I was looking for the switch and because Keith had said that the header tank was overflowing. Ye Gods - I must learn NOT to panic. I was still yelling at Keith all the time, but he was still soaking in the bath . . . no sense of urgency. When he DID get upstairs, turns out the gizmo I am meant to be looking for is a tiny little toggle on a 1/2" piece of black cord BEHIND a plastic wotsit on a piece of wood at the back of the header tank. Yeah, sure, I'd recognize that straight away wouldn't I? Kitchen floor awash by this time, airing cupboard contents soaked on one side. 

Anyway, whilst we were out yesterday, we bought a new jacket for the hot water tank, as that had needed replacing for quite some while as it had gotten ripped, but fitting the new one (4 separate strips which you tie together at the top and then we belted round using the metal girdle from the last one) was something else. Keith is still not very dextrous because of his shoulder and arm problems, so I had to put my arms behind the tank, knowing there were oodles of spiders and webs there (yuk) and managed to get it all tucked in and sorted. In time-honoured fashion, the eyelets at the top are secured with binder twine as the piffling little length of cord they included was too short . . .

We spent a long morning at a car boot sale yesterday, and did very well (made up for the shortcomings of the last two Fairs), and we have decided that 90% of what we took and didn't sell can go to the next auction at Brecon.  It will make what it will make.

Despite being tired, I couldn't get to sleep last night and was still awake at 1.30 a.m.  I finally dropped off to sleep and then after just two hours, my asthma was bad.  I thought Keith hadn't washed the pollen off his hair and so went into the spare room, but by 5.30 I had to get up and take my inhaler, early.  Now it looks like it was something I ate (in the middle of the night! a piece of baking with Raspberries in it - raspberries are high in histamines) which have made me bad.

Still, I have already gone through my Literary bookcase and had a BIG purge (only left the books by or about Thomas Hardy and the Brontes.) I should have room to move my Edward Thomas books in there now, or most of them at any rate.  Next purge are the Cookery books downstairs.  I have far too many books purely because I have always had them, and we won't have room when we downsize.  In fact, SHOULD we sell this year and buy the cottage I like the best, 9/10 of the furniture will also have to go.  That should be quite liberating.  I am thankful to our son, who was here to help with some jobs on Saturday, who when I mentioned the cottage which was "too small for our furniture" said, well, you don't NEED all these big lumps of furniture.  We don't want them when you're gone, and he is completely correct.  We were trying to find room for the pieces they HAD spoken for though, and would need to use up bedrooms for storage until an outbuilding could be put on the ground above this particular cottage, should it come our way.  

Right, that's me done.  Off to find something bland and low-histamine for breakfast.