Hello Again, Sydney

One Sydney-sider's experiences moving back to Sydney after a long absence overseas.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Under the weather

It seems like not long ago I was posting about the weather getting warmer and the joy of seeing jacarandas out in bloom. Well someone obviously hasn't been burning enough fossil fuels because autumn arrived right on schedule this year.

There are the usual signs: days get shorter and colder, guys on the train start wearing their suit jackets again, and the pharmacists and medical centres advertise flu vaccines. I've already succumbed to an early season cold, not bad enough to justify 'chucking a sickie' but it has brought back a lot of memories. Illnesses are quite evocative in their way, and there's something about the symptoms – particularly the way my eyeballs hurt when I look too far to one side, or up or down – that is pure Sydney for me. I can't put my finger on it, but the colds simply weren't the same in Bogotá. Not saying they were better or worse, just different. But then it's only logical that as well as different food and music etc, you should have different viruses. Isn't it?

This morning I bought some cough lollies at the station and it made me smile to see all those old standbys: the Anticols, Butter Menthols, Soothers and Throaties. But you know how it is with cough lollies – half a packet later the only real effect they've had is to leave you feeling sick from all the sugar. So this afternoon I hit the chemist and got some proper cold and flu tablets.

As always, taking this medicine makes me wonder why I don't do it more often. I dropped a couple as soon as I got home and now I feel awake, pleasantly wired and productive – much more so than when I'm in good health. Do we even need to be sick to take them? Perhaps the only thing standing between me and completing all those side projects is a couple of packets of Coldral ...

1 Comments:

At 8:27 am, Blogger Eliza Graham said...

Hi Mark

Great to see you're keeping up your blog--love hearing what you're up to.

Elizabeth

 

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