Dan Morris: You give me fever

Alas, it’s that time of year again, and fellow sufferers of this abhorrent stain on the warmer months of the year will know only too well of what I speak.

Hay fever: the way in which the Lord Almighty likes to teach humility to those who pride themselves on having plenty of outdoorsy get-up-and-go.

I’ve fallen victim to the cursed pollen plague for at least the last 20 years, and without fail, every mid-June, it arrives to chastise me.

As a 16-year-old, I remember the universal hell of school exam season being compounded even further by the fact that Mother Nature saw it fit for tears to be streaming from my perpetually itchy eyeballs for a solid fortnight.

The stress of my university finals was also amplified thus, and I can’t tell you how many summer first dates have ended in disaster as a result of almost comedic sneezing fits.

Being allergic to being outside just isn’t nice. And it would be oh so much better if the pox manifested itself in the winter when only the log fires are in bloom.

But I suppose that’s the point.

Somehow – perhaps in a similar manner to how women supposedly benefit from a hormone that helps them forget the trauma of giving birth – every May I fail to remember the absolute horror that is surely about to befall me and millions of others, and then the wretched snake of an affliction gets its fangs in nice and deep.

To use a bit of early noughties vernacular – and a term popular during my aforementioned GCSEs – it really is just pants.

We wait all year long for the joy of summer to blossom, fantasising about all of the glorious outdoor fun we’re going to indulge in, simply to be spanked into submission by a grotesque imitation of all of our least favourite winter plagues the moment the season rears its head.

Thankfully, my hay fever, like that of many others, doesn’t last the whole summer long. But it kicks it off with a horrid start, and right now – in the full throes of it –I’m cranky, uptight and bitter.

There are of course remedies that can help, and I’m sure fellow sufferers will, like me, have tried most of them.

Over-the-counter pills are available, and thankfully these can be effective at alleviating many of the symptoms. Avoiding being outdoors at all is of course recommended, yet this is a cruel solution and also a suggestion akin to ‘don’t jump in that clean patch of snow’. It will, quite rightly, be entirely ignored.

Sadly, it seems that there are a limited number of permanent solutions out there, yet I do remember years ago a family friend clueing me into a practice that could, in theory, hold the pollen pox forever at bay. Presenting me with a jar of a local farm shop’s finest about a decade back, he told me that if I were to imbibe locally-made honey throughout the early months of the year, this could, in theory, shield me from the nasty effects of summer pollen.

I enjoyed the jar of delicious (to ape Clarkson) ‘bee juice’ that he presented me with, yet I must confess to never having continued with his suggested regimen. And every June for the last 10 years, I have kicked myself squarely in the behind.

So, to use this week’s column for an entirely self-serving purpose, I want it documented in print that I am indeed quite the moron, and, for the love of God, come next spring I need to do like Baloo and Winnie the Pooh and start getting a bountiful supply of honey down my Gregory Peck.

I’ll leave it to you good folks to bash me around the head and remind me.

There is, of course, another solution to the ‘hay fever problem’: for the love of all that is Holy, jet off to unaffected climes.

I’m already heading to Finland this September, and providing that the bears treat me better than the British pollen, I may head back again next summer.

To all of the fellow afflicted – particularly those youngsters that have just faced the greatest trial of their lives with examinations alongside being a snot-ridden state of affairs – I extend the mightiest hand of empathy.

But don’t worry, all. If reincarnation is a genuine gig, and there is, indeed, any justice in this world or the next, we’ll all eventually be reborn as billionaires with wings.

Keep your chins up, fellow sufferers, and try your utmost not to let the pesky pollen bring you down over what is expected to be a rather warm weekend. 

Here’s to brighter days – but perhaps, also, colder ones…