Our Albion

I am flying to Australia soon.

When I fly long distances my sinuses dry out, then start to bleed, I get a sore throat, it gets infected and I usually end-up with a lung infection. It’s not pretty. One one occasion it was so bad that a week long trip to China led to another week off work, at home in bed. More recently it’s been a week in New York leading me to snork, snuffle and cough for a month or so after I return. It was part of the inspiration for the Travel Sucks group on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7767043190

The Soprano, who you have read about before here, is a sporano - no surprises with that nickname. She has suggested I try the Humidiflyer. http://www.humidifyier.com. For those that haven’t clicked the link, the humidiflyer looks a bit like a respirator mask and helps you to re-breathe the moisture that you exhale so that your ENT system doesn’t dehydrate. (The mucous in your nose is your first barrier against infection, so then that dries up, you are toast.)

Things have not started well. I ordered my humidiflyer, then emailed the link to Mrs Albion.

She is currently trying to find our booking number so she can move to a seat that is not next to me.

Update:

Due to some sort of ordering mess, I had to re-order the Humidiflyer to be delivered to me in Australia, so I flew there without it. The verdict? I think it worked. I was still tired and had to adjust to the time change, but I found my eating habits weren’t as out-of-whack as they usually are when I returned to the UK, my usual problem of bleeding sinuses only happened for a day, and there was no follow on throat or lung infection. I’ll certainly be using it again on my next long-haul flight. I just wish it didn’t look so surgical!

It seems the done thing for anyone with a website and an audience of one to write up their experience of the earthquake.

Unfortunately I didn’t notice - although I do remember not sleeping well. I shall resport to the coverage of others.

Johnny’s experience was particularly profound - you can read about it here.

And The Guardian’s coverage was particularly insightful. I reproduce one of the comments from that page here, for your benefit:  

Some jiffy bags were dislodged from some high shelving in our office. I can only thank God that no one was standing underneath at the time.

NickBannister

1. Poltergeist activity

2. Wind 

3. Terrorism

4. A train going by

5. Their house spontaneously falling down

War: everything’s just Peachy here

Peach is putting together an anthology of bloggers’ writing to benefit War Child. It’s called You’re Not the Only One.  

I have submitted my piece about the Christmas Pudding, if anyone is interested. Let’s hope it makes the cut.

Meanwhile, you can find out more about the book and how to buy it when it’s ready, here.

 

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Posted: February 14th, 2008 under Making it nice.
Comments: 1