Looking Good Feeling Good

Oh Pain Excruciating!! And still one ear to go!

I don’t know why I should develop Allergies at this tender age, but all of a sudden my pierced ears refuse to let earrings In, my nose is streaming (cats? dust? general breathing?), and my eyes retaliate Redly and Voluminously at a miniscule whiff of makeup.

To start with the ears… I mean, it’s thirty years since mum greeted my newly-perforated lobes with ‘Aaaaaahhhhhh! Oh Dolores – you had such Perfect ears!’ (True – I coyly did).

I remember being very concerned the first week that I’d forget to turn the studs and they’d refuse to let go without flesh attached, but my flatmate was brilliant (being an experienced wearer) and stopped me being So Soppy.

Since that first trepidatious experience, ornamenting my ears has been a delight - dangly, delicate, sparkly, colourful, bizarre… Fluffy purply cubes, miniature red and black fans… a Crayfish-shaped pair sent from Japan by my brother and his wife. (I thought they were chopstick rests till it was explained they Came Apart).

Now, though, something inside seems to be rebelling against Anything Decorative, and I have to catch my moody ears on a Feeling-Good! Day - even then I must be satisfied with the jaunty one-earringed pirate look.

The eye-makeup allergy is even more annoying. Ravishing though I am naturally, of course, just a Teeny Tinge of shadow, highlighter, eyebrow pencil, liner, mascara, blenderbrush… is Indi-flaming-spensable if I’m venturing beyond the garden without a balaclava. And you can't get an Ornamental balaclava anywhere…

But I really can't believe I’ve had to take up Anti-histamines - the nose-blow was just too constant. I have no idea where these Histamines are coming from but if I find out I’ll give them a Damn Good Thrashing.

The chemist said it’s quite common for people Beyond Youth to develop allergies – just one of those things we must Shrug at.

But what can be the cause? The dregs of the Ash Cloud? Our cats exuding toxic fumes in their Ripe old age? A secret bio-weapon bunker under the abandoned village butcher’s shop? Or simply the inevitable effects on a Delicate organism of Chemically Modern Life?


Of course, In My Day, we didn’t have Allergies.