Becca Jane St Clair

After my post last week, we went away for the long weekend down to the South of England to visit Tim’s best mate, to go to Bath, and to spend a day in London. And of course, I came back with a cold. Last time we spent the long weekend with Nick, I came home with a cold. When we went to see BNL in Glasgow, I came home with a cold. When I went to visit J in Southamton, I came home with a cold. I even brought a cold back from our Austria trip. My music director commented on Thursday that I always seem to pick up colds easily and she wondered if I was okay. When I was living in the US (for 30 years of my life!) I think I had a cold maybe once or twice a year.

What changed?

Moving to another continent. No, seriously. Now, I’m not a scientist, so this is in the most basic terms, and probably horribly inaccurate, but — when you are born, you are practically immediately exposed to germs and bacteria. As you grow, you become immune to some of the germs that are local to you. And then you move. 30 years of immunity to NY/NJ/PA germs means NOTHING when it’s up against UK germs. Those UK germs will fight your immune system, and fight it hard. I know some ex-pat friends who told horror stories of spending their first few years constantly getting sick with colds. I thought they were exaggerating. Now I get it.

A friend of ours suggested that I start using local honey because he thought it might help me with building up an immunity to the pollen/germs/etc in Lincolnshire. And, I think it worked. The trouble is, I travel to other parts of the UK and then wind up with a cold or worse. Visiting the Southern part of England I even get digestive problems because the water is different than the water here.

So since Tuesday I have been battling this cold. I’ve gone through an entire box of tissues as well as 2 rolls of toilet paper with the constant nose blowing. I finally can breathe a bit, but my upper lip is rubbed raw from blowing my nose, and I still don’t have much of a voice. I’ve had to cancel on visiting Tim’s dad for Father’s Day and Tim’s grandad on his birthday because of this. I hope I get better soon!

~~*~~
The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, or the RSS feed(s), please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users can comment directly on Facebook.]