POLLEN DIARIES: PART 4

It ought to be over by now. I've been through the explosive sneeze phase - got fed up with that one very quickly. Then came the fire-throat, a few days of feeling like I'd swallowed some sandpaper. After that it was back to the classic nostril-block. The nostril-block feels like your nose is so heavy that it's about to crack away from the rest of your face like the Sphinx. Breathing is impossible and you can jolly well sniff goodbye to being able to smell anything - those nostrils are blocked up like Victorian railway tunnels.

I thought that would be it. Normally the nostril-block is the last phase in the cycle before the inevitable rain washes the last of the pollen out of the atmosphere and I can go back to enjoying the summer.

Not yet, sunshine, says the grass outside, waving and taunting me through the window. It doesn't look like rain either. The sky is a sports-day blue and the big yellow sun beams through it as though it's worked out what to do from children's drawings.

Today I'm suffering from that inescapably anti-social condition, the daytime terror of the Spontaneous Nose Run. I don't think there is anything more infuriating or irksome than the Spontaneous Nose Run. It happens at random, itching and dripping off the end of your nose before you can reach for the tissues. I can't stand it - it is actually disgusting. I've spent a large portion of the morning blowing my nose in the toilets and still, by the time I get back to my desk...

Don't worry. I have a stash of tissues.

I'm a little self-conscious about blowing my nose in public. Is that a bit weird? You know how there are things that you just don't do? How do you find out what they are? How do you discover whether something is socially acceptable? I once felt the shockwave around a friend's family dinner table when I used the butter knife to scoop out jam from the jam jar (never again, shudder). And what about the time someone found out that I keep ketchup in the cupboard but not eggs in the fridge? My goodness. Anyway, how do you know? I'd be a rubbish immigrant in another country.

For me, the nose-blow is not something I can do in public. I don't have a problem with other people trumpeting discreetly into a handkerchief - it's not that I find it uncouth or filthy; I just can't do it myself, without feeling properly awkward. Maybe that's a bit weird.

Still, sitting here in a pile of crumpled tissues, with red eyes, a pendulous nose and the tracks of involuntary tears smeared down my cheeks, combined with the haggard look of a man who was up all night, sneezing and twitching under an itchy duvet... I guess worrying about looking socially awkward is already a little pointless.