grudgingly sandy

Returned to the sandlands this morning, landing at six am after yet another fab trip to London. This year the city has been peskily refusing to demonstrate any of the qualities that drove me out, well, at least on the weekends I seem to visit. My cousin sophs thinks its Gramps calling me home, sending me sunbeams from heaven, and I'm wondering if she might know something I don't. We spent the afternoon in her garden in 7sisters on Sat, drinking red wine and discussing a job she should apply for, so I hope Gramps could hear and turns his attention to making that happen... Then once he's fixed Soph's career he can sort out the global financial crisis and there'll be jobs for me to go home to! Not too much to ask of my Gramps...

It was another whirlwind trip, including long walks through the city (and the City) in unsuitable shoes, a meeting in the British Library, a wander round the Tate Modern (where my favourite thing was the filled in crack), power sessions with FD and the CME, and watching Bern's play with the fam-afia. Now knackered and seem to have developed some evil virus in ear canal and throat, which has an unpronounceable name. Promptly took myself off to the docs, as this is week 2 of sore ears, and he told me off for not coming to see him last week (prompting a frankly, bizarre conversation about the time he left the building last week - as I didn't meet him till today I'm still unsure how I was expected to have an opinion... However...)

The appointment ended with the best prescription ever, and I now rate the little Iranian ENT doc. He looked at me terribly seriously and said, "Now, I will give you a silly prescription"
I think I just sort of goggled at him, wondering if my ears were worse than I'd thought.
"Yes, you will think I am silly, but still, your cure is in your hands"
(At which point he took a call from the wife, whom he addressed as Mama, and chatted softly in Farsi, French, Arabic and English for a couple of soothing moments.)
Then he reached for a blank piece of paper and drew two bottles.
"These are litre bottles of Masafi" he told me gravely.
On one, he then drew a small cup, and carefully colored it in.
"This is red vinegar. Mix it with bottle 1"
Making sure he still had my attention, he then draws a teaspoon on the second bottle.
"This, is sodium bicarb. Mix this in the second bottle."

"You have a virus," he says again, " so I cannot give you any medicines. On the hour, you will gargle with the mixture in this bottle (pointing to bottle 1) and then spit it out. On the half hour, you gargle with the other bottle, and spit it out."

He looked so pleased with himself, enjoying my obvious bewildered gaze, that I hadn't the heart to interrupt.

"By changing the pH in your mouth this regularly, you will kill the virus, in your throat, and your ears."

He should have had a scarf or other flourish to mark this dramatic pronouncement. He has given me his card to call him when it works, and I'm looking forward to it - if only I'd found him last week.