POLLEN DIARIES: PART 21

I'm not one for exaggeration as you know, but this week I think I've had the worst hay fever in the history of the world.

Cetirizine hydrochloride: ineffective. Just makes me grouchy and unpleasant to be around. Loratadine: grumpy and sneezy, still five dwarves short of a fairy tale. Vaseline up the nostrils: the whole world smells of Vaseline, and yes, all it does it trap the pollen in exactly the place you really don't want it. Local honey: myth, apparently. Tissues up the nose: charming. Also makes you breathe with your mouth open, causing lips that are drier than a ship's biscuit, oh and a sore throat.

Speaking of a sore throat, have you ever sneezed so loud and for so long that your throat catches fire? You can't swallow at first, then when you do, the inside of the oesophagus is so sensitive that a tiny bit of anything feels like you're eating sandpaper. Inevitably, you start coughing - which up until about fifteen months ago, would have gathered concerned looks, and if you were lucky, a friendly pat on the back. Now, it has people reaching for a hazmat suit and shouting 'unclean, unclean' as they run away down the street.

During a volley of earth-quaking sneezes, it's all you can do to keep your head about you. I found myself spinning about my flat, doubled-over with the allergic reflex as though I'd been punched in the stomach - sneeze after sneeze after sneeze, wondering when will it stop? It's infuriating. I span through reams of toilet roll and sneezed and blew and sneezed and blew until my eyes felt like they would pop out of my head and roll across the carpet.

When you're not in the middle of the snotty blitzkrieg, you are of course subject to what you might call the background level of allergic rhinitis - meaning permanently sniffly. There'll be no hanging around with people who don't like the sound of someone snorting through their nostrils; they'll go right off you. And if you yourself are one of those people, then you'll go right off you too.

My puffed-up, bloodshot eyes swim with tears, my face is red and streaky and I'm panting with my mouth open, just trying to get on with things. The whole thing is a colossal irritation.

Apparently, the man who discovered hay fever, John Bostock rented a clifftop cottage for three months of summer and 'nearly escaped the disease'. Can I do that? Does that work? Did it work for John?

I think I'll stay where I am. Being on a clifftop during a disorientating bout of explosive sneezing might not be the cleverest plan.