My home made Migraine remedy, and others February 6, 2012

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve been waking up these last few days with a migraine. When there’s no tablets to hand, or the tablets just aren’t doing their thing I have a little remedy that helps and it’s unusual.

My little trick, and it won’t work for everybody, is to have a strong coffee, a bar of chocolate and a large drink of cola.

One of the main active ingredients you’ll find in Migraine tablets is caffeine. Don’t believe me? Look here – http://www.drugs.com/condition/migraine.html That’s why the coffee and cola work for me. There’s also a small amount of caffeine in chocolate. The sugar in the cola and chocolate give me a boost and somehow that gets me through the worst.

That got me thinking. What other unusual remedies do I use? A couple sprang to mind immediately that I thought I’d share.

The next one is a cure for hiccups. It shocks most people when I tell them about it but it’s never failed me. My cure is a teaspoon of malt vinegar. If one doesn’t work I will occasionally take two or three, but it’s rare that I need to take more and it always works. I don’t know why and frankly I don’t care!

The other remedy that I thought of is something I was told about roughly 13 years ago when my first born was in nappies / diapers. It’s a remedy for nappy / diaper rash that’s a little bit ‘out there’ but stick with me.

If your child has nappy rash you coat their rear in egg white. Yes, you read right! I said egg white. If, like me, you have a child whose behind is so sore it’s cracking (as it can do when teething happens) you are desperate for something that will help, but even I admit putting raw egg on broken skin is scary. BUT my son was almost free from rash within 24 hours!

The logic is this: egg white is the amniotic fluid of a bird and your baby has been floating in your equivalent for 9 months. It doesn’t sting when you put it on your babies skin for that reason and when egg white is exposed to air it dries in to a waterproof layer. How about that? A natural, waterproof, chemical free layer that protects the skin. How great is that?

I dream of retirement…. September 21, 2010

I have reached the age where retirement is almost a close as leaving school.  I am half way through my working years and having recently reached a hiatus (also known as redundancy) I am giving much thought to my senior years. 

A particluar preoccupation at the moment is my final home.  The house we live in at the moment was bought with working and having a family in mind.  I love my house.  I love its location. It doesn’t however match up to my dream house in any way, shape or form.

My dream house looks like a child’s drawing.  It varies day by day in actual design but has a door in the middle and has symmetrical windows.  The walls are rendered and painted white or pale pink and of course there are flowers around the door. The house is surrounded by fields.

You approach the house via a gravel drive.  The gardens surround the house which sits squarely in the middle of  a grassy carpet. To the front of the house, on the left, is a small duck pond and a beehive.  The ducks quack gently, the geese honk to great you and the bees float around on the warm summer breeze.

To the rear of the house is a kitchen garden where I grow fruit and vegetables.  There’s also a little area put aside especially for me to grow flowers for cutting.

Inside the living room has a real fire, as do some of the other rooms.  The window is set low in the wall so that the wiew can be enjoyed whilst nestled on the sofa.  The kitchen has a stone floor.  It’s big enough to house a table and chairs.  The kitchen door looks straight out onto my vegetable garden and has a stable door to keep the dog out with his muddy feet. Just outside the door is a small table and two chairs for our morning coffee.

It could be that I am looking for some idyllic dream, that I am chasing the rainbow, but I’ve learnt that you need to have something in life to aspire to and for me this is it.  When my children are  old enough to leave home I will start searching for the pot of gold.  I will find my dream home and be happy there.