Hay Fever

On how nature said fuck you and never looked back

Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash

One day (2022), we decide, for good old times’ sake, to hike from Windermere to Ambleside, going North and East a little bit, turning off onto the walking paths. I needed some space; sleep wasn’t going well at all. I just needed air.

Was going great until just after midday, my throat started burning, I was sneezing, my eyes, god, my eyes, I wanted to claw them out of my face. I was burning up, my head was pounding, all the while I was trying to fucking breathe and keep walking. By the time we reached somewhere for lunch, I was barely able to function.

They had to push my failing body to Ambleside, where I had the cognitive function to realise this was probably an allergy, and all but fell into Tesco to buy some antihistamines, which were confiscated after I had taken three in one go instead of two. Probably for the best, I was not thinking straight. By the time we got to the hotel, it was all I could do to stand there and nod when prompted. I found the bathroom, sat down in the shower and let it rain on me for over an hour. It helped. It really did; they did knock and make sure I was still alive.

I never used to get hay fever.

I don’t didn’t really have any allergies. I think. Not really ones that seemed to interact with any part of my life.

Off the top of my head, mosquito bites and I do not get along. Thankfully, it’s better than it was when I was a child. Something about the Australian version just turbocharged the bites.

Mum had to clip all of my nails just to stop me from tearing into my skin and use flannels soaked in as hot water as I could tolerate. And no, I didn’t stop going outside, and yes, I kept getting hammered by them in the early evening, leading to a cycle over summer holidays of increasing distress because I was itching and the scratching wasn’t fixing anything. When I was old enough to sort out my methods of relief (I used a spoon held in hot water; it was a bit more elegant than dabbing myself with a sad flannel), I was allowed to keep my nails. But that didn’t really work at night.

I used to feel bad for everyone I worked with who struggled in spring/summer with hay fever, I’d help, obviously, water, tea, tissues etc but I got to exist without any care in the world with these things.

Until four years ago.

I was in the Lake District, it was summer, and I had a thing during those years where we would pick a starting location and then an end location, and we’d walk from A to B across a week.

The best version of this was walking from Wye (Kent, near Ashford) to Canterbury in 2020.

We walked - Wye → Folkestone. We were supposed to stop in Brabourne for the night but it was still COVID times so no where open. So on the hottest day of the fucking year we had to walk up and down in completely open fields carrying a weeks worth of clothes/life stuff/water for the day. I don’t know how we made it those 14/16 miles all I know is that I had melted somewhere near mile 7 and the rest was fumes. In our brilliance, we’d accidentally booked a disabled suite at the Premier Inn, which, in hindsight, was fucking brilliant, and I just got to sit on a chair in the shower and assess my life decisions up to that point.

Hard dirt and heat exhaustion

Next was Folkestone → Dover I was shattered already by the point and it was uphill, and then downhill but it was a shorter day and we got to stay in a really nice little posh B and B, I spent most of the afternoon on the beach with my ankles in the water, probably not the best idea because (no offence England) your water is not clean it is murky, but the salt sting felt great. And I didn’t get any infections, so chuffed.

Dover, and cliffs.

Dover→ Deal was my favourite part of the walk. The entire day was spent next to the water line, and the breeze coming from the ocean was SUBLIME by the time we’d gotten to Deal and rewarded ourselves with pouring water over ourselves and buying a pukka pie and then gushing to the pukka pie fish and chip lady what we were doing and getting validation that we are insane and impressive at the same time. I got to spend the day just on my own. We’d left a bit earlier and gotten in mid-afternoon. Very pretty town. The hotel room DID NOT BREATHE, and well, that was a problem for the morning when I had to peel myself out of bed.

Deal - Morning from the Hotel

From Deal → Sandwich, we turned back inland for the shortest leg of the walk, which was very appreciated because I hadn’t slept at all the night before, and I was in a mood, hot and bothered, before we’d even gotten out the door. Sandwich is a very quiet, pretty town, and it was comfortable in a weird way, if you grew up in small backwater towns as I have.

Sandwich → Canterbury was a very pretty part of the walk, mostly following the main roads as it passed through a number of smaller towns, before arriving in Canterbury proper in the early evening. It was a longer stretch, but thankfully it was mostly flat and on roads, so easier going.

We had a full day in Canterbury the following day before catching the train back to London in the evening. It was pretty much just a sugar day for me. Coffee, pancakes, ice-cream, accidental nap in a café, then more nap time on the train home. Then two more days of sleeping to recover from the walk. Came back to the world of the professional very sleepy and limping.

ANYWAYS

Back to the Lake District. So we weren’t doing that this time. We had an Airbnb in Barrow in Furness because it was fucking cheap. And instead of just walking in a straight line, we took the bus up to Windermere and then did walkies around there.

Ever since then, I have suffered from hay fever, and I hate every second of it. I LOATHE having to take any form of medication for longer than a week, tops. (Antibiotic courses and I are a fantastic combination of self-hatred and pain) So by 2024, I was done with Hay Fever and promptly got it again. But I wasn’t going to be shackled to antihistamines any more. So I tried to brute force it, but it didn’t work.

Clearly looking like I was dying, a co-worker said, why don’t I try Olive Oil. I think given how far they stepped back, I think the face I pulled was implying murder, but they clarified saying they had Hay Fever too and rubbing Olive Oil in their nostrils helped.

I mean, what else can you do?

So I did it. It was disgusting, actually made me feel ill. But for some reason, it helped a little bit. So I put more up there. Apparently, it’s a thing; it catches the pollen before it gets up your nose, whatever. I managed a summer without needing chemical assistance. Last year, I tried with the olive oil, and it was manageable, a few days here and there, especially when we were playing on recently trimmed fields, and it hasn’t impeded my ability to play.

I know that allergies can develop during incredible moments of duress and stress, and during that Lake District period, I was on the cusp of a lot of change in my life, both professionally and personally. I was a shadow of the moody, magnetic basic bitch I am today. I wasn’t eating, bathroom crying was becoming a hobby (I was very good at it), phone on silent more and more. I wasn’t doing very well, and life just decided to make it a little bit harder.

Maybe as my life stabilised, my allergies have also decided to ease off, which makes no fucking sense, ease off when life is shit, body, not the other way around. I didn’t consent to any of this.

So that’s where I am. Four years into a hay fever I didn’t ask for, one weird Italian remedy deep, and slowly, grudgingly, getting better at the same rate the rest of my life is. My body, it turns out, is petty. It held a grudge on my behalf long after I’d stopped holding it myself.

I am going full cold turkey this year. Am expecting to succeed brilliantly. If not. Misery loves company >:3