If you are of a queasy disposition please look away now. In a bid to improve my healthspan and not just my lifespan, I have, over the past year or two, been undergoing various tests and “procedures”. The result of this is that apparently I have various Lyme disease tick-borne co-infections (bartonella and borrelia, should that mean a row of beans to you) and an overdose of lead, mercury and mould. It’s quite conceivable that you may be suffering with similar afflictions and not know it. The tests required to unearth this information are specific and expensive. However, the low grade ailments (headaches, fatigue and brain fog to name but three) that many people suffer from can certainly be explained by things like mould and metals in the body. The London Clinic of Nutrition, with whom I have been exchanging cash for diagnostics and repair, have given me a whole range of methods to detox and eliminate the unwanted intruders. One of these is a coffee enema. If you had suggested to me as a young pilot in the Army Air Corps that one day I would willingly be injecting coffee up my backside, I suspect you would have got short shrift! But that is exactly what I am now doing. A rapid delivery from Amazon of a sort of siliconey/rubbery sort of hot water bottle, with a long tube, a tap and various nozzles, plus a supply of very special, finely ground, organic, hand-picked, “grown on southern slopes only”, limited edition Peruvian coffee and I was ready to put it all to the test. I will spare you the intimate details of all that is required to end up with intestines full of lukewarm coffee, but suffice it to say it’s actually rather a pleasurable experience and the feeling of cleanliness afterwards is well worth the effort. Only time will tell if the desired effect is being achieved. Allegedly the infusion of coffee refreshes parts other liquids cannot reach (with apologies to Heineken) and enables the body to safely eject all those unwanted invaders. No doubt Gwyneth Paltrow would be proud of me.
Did you ever see that brilliant film Trading Places starring Eddie Murphy? I was reminded of it yesterday listening to a group of schoolgirls chatting in the street. One of them I have known for a few years through hockey. From humble beginnings she has bloomed and blossomed within the cultured portals of one of England’s finer public schools. Starting out with a voice that the market girl Eliza Doolittle would have been proud of, she could now pass as an aristocratic daughter of Cholmondley Hall, so sweet were the plums that she was sucking. It did make me wonder if the old boys/girls network is still alive and well? Are people still judged by the way they look and speak when it comes to getting high flying jobs? I suspect the answer is yes, in some spheres. However, it’s now very apparent that such a privileged education can even be a handicap when it comes to getting into Oxbridge.
No doubt our super/hypermarkets will soon be echoing to the sound of “The Holly and the Ivy” and other such seasonal renditions. I am totally unfamiliar with its origins, but the carol proclaims that “of all the trees in the wood the Holly bears the crown”. It has a blossom as white as the lily flower, a berry as red as any blood (except members of the Royal family of course), a prickle as sharp as any thorn and a bark as bitter as any gall. Why all that should confer Royal status is beyond me. As for ivy…….I have spent the last two years trying to rid our borrowed domain from generations of growth of the wretched stuff. Our many elegant trees, not to mention the walls and brickwork, are extremely grateful for my efforts. In fairness, our neighbour’s holly is a fine specimen, with richly variegated leaves and currently a display of blood red berries that would keep Waitrose in stock for a month, should they be any use for jam making….which of course they’re not. The local bird population is extremely excited and grateful though. No doubt new holly trees will be popping up all over the South Downs.
Time for a coffee, methinks….
ADayInTheStrifeOf 