S*T*U*F*F* Reloaded

I’m up late, waiting for an emergency gas engineer to come round. I called them at midnight, supposedly to have someone round within one hour, but calling them again at 2am, I was told it wasn’t in the system. If the house explodes, someone sue them please.

I hope it doesn’t come to that. But there is a strong smell of gas at the back door, and I’d rather someone found out where it was coming from and made it go away.

I had an interesting foray into the world of allergies today. I was never allergic to anything growing up, but when I cam back from Japan, had developed severe allergies to (a) cats and (b) kiwi fruit. It must have stemmed from my diet during that year, but it was quite a shock when I ate a kiwi fruit (as you do when they are your favourite fruit) and felt my lips, throat and mouth starting to tingle and itch, followed by a tightening in the throat to the point where I could hardly breathe - almost like an anaphylactic shock. It was grim. So I started to avoid kiwi fruits, thinking nothing more of it.

Until today, when my friend Didier from Brussels gave me a spoonful of raw pollen just to see what it was like (strange fellow eats it every day!) and the same thing happened, though not quite as severe. So I looked it up, and saw the connection - the pollen is the key. In the table of possible triggers were a few other things that have made me feel a bit odd too - walnuts for example. Just the other night a friend gave me a slice of coffee and walnut cake, and when I announced I thought I was slightly allergic to it, Diane pooh-poohed this with the “that’s the first I’ve heard of it” speech… I feel vindicated now.

Where is this gas guy? What is the life of a 24-hour gas engineer like? I’ve no idea, I just wish he would hurry up so I can get some sleep before getting up at eyes-bleed-o’clock to take Luka swimming.