the case of almost-not-really swine flu

The other night I developed a slight sniffle and then lay awake in bed convincing myself I had swine flu. By the morning I had full on sinus issues, and fell asleep in the car on the way to work and dreamt I was climbing a giant red Lego. Four hours later, I was on the bus trying to make my way home, and fell asleep again. I feverishly dreamt I was sitting in strawberries. Possible swine flu-induced delirium is apparently limited to the red end of the color spectrum.

The next morning (or NOON as some folk like to call it) I woke up and realized I had never been home sick in this country, and didn't know what to do with myself. In the states, I would drink loads of 7up and watch re-runs of Little House on the Prairie. There was nothing even remotely resembling this anywhere on television. The closest I could get was Hollyoaks (filmed nowhere near a prairie), which I get confused with Eastenders, which I get confused with Neighbours, even though the Neighbours live in Australia. You see my predicament. I was two steps away from being back in Lego land (which, strangely, is an ACTUAL PLACE in Britain, but that's for another time).

I simultaneously discovered two things. 1. A show called "The Kitchen Pharmacy" where some girl with perfect skin tells you how to cure everything short of the apocalypse with herbs and 2. A show called "Come Dine With Me", where some strangers make food for each other and compete for £1,000 while the narrator mocks them and they secretly mock each other. Both very, very British.

I really hate finding two interesting shows at the same time, because I have to flip between them and try to watch them BOTH, and my brain doesn't keep up with that even on my good days. I always end up thinking that everything would be better if the two shows merged. (Or I get convinced that the two shows I am watching are actually one.... any difference between "Antiques Roadshow" and "Cash in the Attic"? I mean, really?)

British daytime television is a unique cultural slice. It is like ancient sawdust pie served with all best efforts (and then secretly rated by the guests in competition for £1000). We get 35 channels, and among these I found two antique shows, two shopping channels, a show about individuals trying really hard to get in some yellow garden guidebook, and a show where farmers invite archaeologists to their farms so they can dig up old roman walls (that last one sucks you in, I swear. The part of my day spent wondering if they were in fact going to find the roman kiln was nail biting. I’m not even joking, I was THAT entranced).

But that Kitchen Pharmacy woman totally sold me. Check it out: http://www.medicinechest.info/series/kitchenpharmacy . By the end of the day I was completely convinced that I was going to have a little herb kitchen just like hers where I can make hops/lavender pillows for insomnia. And she’s just so cute, and looks so healthy, I’ve become determined to take up her mantle. I know nothing of home remedies, but I am on the hunt for an aloe plant. And lavender, as apparently that goes in every remedy. I might start putting it on my cereal, as it seems to benefit every type of ailment.

This could prove somewhat problematic, as I don’t tend to discriminate when it comes to my enthusiasm for plants. I’ve been known to pull up grass and eat it, thinking it was chives. Stupid-ass grass masquerading as chives, why to they have to look so similar? I’m lucky that I hate mushrooms, or I could have met an untimely end years ago.

We went to the garden centre and tried to find me an aloe plant, to no avail. We did come home with a Venus fly trap though, which is really fun to poke at. I keep looking for bugs around the house to feed to it. I swear though, once that thing came through the door it was like all the bugs KNEW. And they vanished. The plant didn’t eat them, it is still sitting on the windowsill, all toothy and hungry. Poor famished plant. If I don’t find any bugs for it soon, I may have to see if that Kitchen Pharmacy woman has any remedies made of Venus fly trap. I bet she has some kind of carnivorous plant infused balm to cure indigestion or something. Then it won’t be pitiful and hungry anymore, but I bet those damn bugs will show up again.