Allergy on tap…

If you have never had allergies, then please feel sorry for me! This year I am suffering from an allergy as the spring has just moved in. Problem is, I have never… not ever in my life… had a day of sneezes, runny nose and dripping eyes.

That, I have found out, is allergy. Actually, “spring allergy”, or “hayfever”, or “seasonal allergy” or “allergic rhinitis”. Which I can’t remember ever before from suffering from it. Maybe I’ve “forgotten” because of my stroke, but I just can’t remember.

I tried to google about people who had only developed this at the age of 59. Like me. Wikipaedia said that around 20% of people in the developed world are affected by hayfever, which is medically known as allergic rhinitis. They have a separate page for this, and describe the effects: “Signs and symptoms include a runny or stuffy nose, sneezing, red, itchy, and watery eyes, and swelling around the eyes. The fluid from the nose is usually clear.” I know that… that’s how I feel. Unfortunately, Wikipaedia didn’t say that people “develop” this sort of stuff at my age.

My head breakdown started on Tuesday. Actually, on Monday night – I had a very sharp pain in my throat which I simply put down to some insect I had swallowed which thanked me by biting me inside my throat. You’re welcome, insect. On Tuesday, after just over an hour at the STEPs meeting at Gold Coast, I was completely overtaken by the feeling of my runny nose and eyes, and I thought that maybe it was the sunny air on that beach. I left and came home and slept that afternoon.

By Wednesday I seemed to be fine, but Thursday I was getting worse – runny nose and eyes. The sneezing didn’t start until yesterday. In the morning I sneezed 17 times, and I had a break from sneezing during the middle of the day. I had thought that was because I slept most of “it” off that afternoon. In the later afternoon and early evening I sneezed another 13 times. I went to bed by 7pm, up and down a couple of times during the night with no more sneezes. This morning, at 5am, it started again – 8 sneezes until 7.30am, which was after I had walked Jordan.

I remember my brother, Wayne, sneezing. He had allergies every single… well, was it spring or summer? I know he had problems, but when mum was alive she took control of his medications for that and the rest of us could pretty much ignore it. I don’t think anyone else in my family had this sort of “allergic rhinitis”… at least, back then. Nowadays I just don’t know if any of them are suffering.

Every country in the world has this sort of stuff, the seasonal allergies.  In the USA it is 8%, in Australia is it 15%, in the rest of the world it is 20%. Look up each of the websites I got that information from. Trouble is, even here in Aus, these allergies can carry on for all of spring and summer, according to ASCIA (Australian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergies). They said: “Pollen seasons can last for several months and exposure is difficult to avoid.” And, a bit further on: “In Australia pollen numbers are lower on the east coast where the prevailing winds come from the sea and where there is protection from westerly winds by the Great Dividing Range. Pollen numbers are higher on the Victorian south coast because the prevailing winds are from the north carrying pollen from the northerly grasslands. In South Australia and Western Australia, the concentration of pollen can vary according to the prevailing winds.” I’m in the east coast of Australia – Brisbane – and had lived by the sea (Woody Point and Scarborough) pretty much immediately after my brain aneurysm and stroke. This is the first time inland after my surgery – perhaps it was just the lovely sea which stopped me finding out about it?

Melbourne (Victoria) has their own very good websites for the people in their area who suffer from allergies. Check them out if you live there. The other one is Asthma Foundation which reports on Adelaide (South Australia). They also reported on the pollen season: “For many people in Australia with asthma or hayfever, August to March (or the dry season in tropical areas) is a difficult time. At this time of year there is often an increased amount of pollen in the air which may trigger an asthma ‘episode’ or ‘attack’ that can make life pretty uncomfortable.”  Which seems very bad for someone like me.

ABC posted an article back in September 2015, and that was updated in June this year. Similar weather? Probably, according to this. Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia have different sneezing times than South Australia. New South Wales, ACT, Victoria and Tasmania start later in spring. Pollens from different grasses affect different cities in different times. Don’t even travel that time of year!!

Some websites give both medical and natural treatments, which may – or may not – work: like, medical treatment of symptoms, antihistamine, allergy shots, nasal sprays. The Aus websites said to stay inside as much as you could, and keep your doors closed during the spring to avoid the pollen dust. Some even say to have a shower after being outside… how many times a day are they talking about? I might have to try some of the treatments, either medical or natural!

So Australia was 15%. Now, it seems, I’m in three groups measured by percentages. 2% for brain aneurysm. 15% for allergy. 17% for stroke. I’m off to a doctor this morning, but if this allergy is because I’m getting older, then I no longer want to get any older!

Wish me luck!

Idiotic rubbish dumpers

 

Last week I'd seen some double mattersses left in front of the Endeavour donation bins by the Bethania shops. They weren’t good. The top material was fraying, and they were rotten. Two of these were folded in half, which would not have happened if they were clean and expected to be sold. The pile grew, with old laminate shelves dumped beside them, and, yesterday, rubbish bags full of… clothes? I don’t know who left all that stuff there, but I think Endeavour should find out – and take them to court.

Since moving to Brisbane 11 years ago I’ve lived in Brisbane, Logan and Moreton Bay council areas, and over those years I’ve read too many stories about illegal dumping at charity bins, but court cases don’t seem to happen often. A man was fined $1,884 in October 2015 after he left a dining setting outside the Lifeline bins at Kianawah Rd, Wynnum West. No photo of that, but the mattress and kid stuff this year, photographed for the Courier article, looks suspiciously like what was at our Endeavour bin.

A few weeks ago Bethania had a roadside rubbish collection, which similarly happens all over Brisbane and Logan council areas every year. Logan Council has a website page which gives the annual collection dates, and lists “hard waste” similar to what was by the Endeavour bins: furniture, wood products, carpet and lino, stoves, dishwashers and washing machines and small amounts of building materials like rocks and tiles but not loose dirt. Every decent resident left tidy piles where they should, and all their stuff was picked up by the rubbish trucks. Why didn’t those who dumped at the Endeavour charity bins put their rubbish on the roadside when they could have?

This problem has been happening all over Australia, and, while most of you might know a little bit about it, it’s gotten worse. The Moreton Bay Council had cut the roadside collection off years ago, and was asked back in 2012 to reinstate it – which they didn’t; residents need to become aware of why they turfed it. The ACT government wanted to remove donation bins when their two-year lease expired in June this year, but I can’t find anything about that after June; perhaps they didn’t do it. WA Government gave a donation to charities which have received some extremely offensive “donations” at their bins and have to get rid of them. NSW Lifeline volunteers worked every Monday to clean up the rubbish left at their charity bins.

Illegal dumping in Queensland doubled in the past financial year, between 2015-2016. The Queensland government this year introduced apilot program which would, if it worked, tackle illegal dumping at charity bins. Have a look at this website: it says “Environment Minister Dr Steven Miles today (May 1) released the ‘Does your donation count or cost? Understanding donations and dumping behaviours and their impacts for Queensland Charities’ report, produced by UnitingCare Community in partnership with Queensland member charities of the National Association of Charitable Recycling Organisations Inc (NACRO).” I can’t find anything about illegal dumping in the Cabinet documents page, but maybe it’s there with another name. Wherever it is, it must be known about by idiotic dumpers. And the Queensland government must make it available to all residents.

What will be our stance? What will be the illegal dumper’s stance? Do we simply just file this away and leave it up to the government? Will they find a decent end step for this or will it continue to get worse than it has? Remember, the illegal dumping doubled in the past financial year. It never should have.

This morning I walked out past the Endeavour bins, and the dumping had been cleaned up. Well done Endeavour men, but this is not their every-day job.

DON'T dump rubbish: get rid of it yourself! 

http://www.couriermail.com.au/questnews/southeast/brisbane-man-fined-almost-2000-for-leaving-donation-at-charity-bin/news-story/a528508fa1e2eb274806666678bef6f0

http://www.couriermail.com.au/questnews/southeast/keep-australia-beautiful-report-says-queensland-dumping-has-doubled-since-last-year/news-story/54a3610b8294d089bee94045cd0298cf

http://www.logan.qld.gov.au/environment-water-and-waste/waste-and-recycling/kerbside-clean-up

http://www.couriermail.com.au/questnews/moreton/redcliffe-traders-issue-desperate-appeal-for-help-to-get-sutton-st-off-its-knees/story-fn8m0yu3-1226460196015

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/act-government-considers-removing-charity-bins-after-shocking-mess-20160415-go72d6.html

www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-22/charities-get-government-funding-to-deal-with-dumping/7533340

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-23/meet-vinnies-volunteers-who-clean-up-after-charity-bin-dumping/6963410

http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2016/5/1/new-queensland-pilot-program-to-tackle-illegal-dumping-at-charity-bins 

Too much to handle

For me, it was too much to handle. If you never have to catch a train, you are very lucky. If you do catch it, and the shit like happened today happens on your ride, well I hope you don't feel like me!

Today I planned on going into SLQ for some (free) presentations on the last day of Brisbane Writer's Festival. This morning I could have arrived at 10am for Sarah Ridout. Le Chateau, or Rajith Savanadasa, Runis, or got there at 11.30 for Science and Belonging with Dr Maggie Hardy, Dr Maree Kimberley, Prof Tamara Davis and Ellen van Neervan. Later, after lunch, I could maybe make it to the 1pm Colonial Stories by Larissa Behrendt, Lucy Treloar and Jay Kristoff, and get to the 2.30pm Illuminae, a 'heart-stopping trilogy about truth, courage and zombies' by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. There was one I wanted to see at 4pm: First Nations Poetry with Shaner Rhodes, Gregory O'Brien and Ellen van Neervan. And my favourite was the finale, Philosophers-in-Residence, the closing address with Antonia Case and Prof Frederick d'Agnostino.

I decided to go to the 11.30 first. I made the train by 9.45am, on time, and a lady sitting at the station beside me mentioned that she was going to Altandi which was before Banoon, where the train would stop. I'd never heard about that, and when the train arrived still showing its normal destination, Ferny Grove, I'd thought the mention of Banoon was not right.

Still, we hopped on, I put my music on through my earphones, and ignored the stations we stopped at. Until we were stopped at Banoon, I hadn't seen anyone else get off and very soon a QR staff person tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I knew I had to get off. What?? She said I should catch a XX bus. Bugger!!

Out to the buses on the roadside and no XX. There was an AA and an AR, but the other QR people said the XX would be about 20 minutes. That would make me late for the 11.30 presentation I intended to go to. I found a sign by the gate, lying on it's side, not hung up, but it told me that I should get onto the AA or the AR. Had those dudes been having me? I got a good woman driver who said I could get onto AR which was express, unlike (thankfully) the AA.

We made it to the Park Road station quite quickly. I got onto another train which took me on to South Brisbane station. Five minutes walk to SLQ and I was early!

The Science and Belonging went very well, with the whole audience split into four groups with 10 minutes with each different presenter. My favourite subjects were Prof Tamara Davis talking about black holes in the universe and what we know about them, and Dr Maggie Hardy talking about spiders - growing, biting, bubbling, colour, venom... far too much for me, but Maggie was a very good talker! All four of these women have written books either in sci-fi fiction or from their education. I wish I could be a Dr!

I went out to look around the cafes by the SLQ, but they were too full (and too expensive) so I went upstairs above the museum to a cafe called Collector's Cafe and found a wonderful chicken and bacon pizza - large piece, cheap price! I forgot to get a coffee! With more than an hour before Illuminae, I went out for a walk. I headed down Melbourne St to the IGA just past the BCAC, and got a chocolate bar... instead of a coffee, which I forgot again! I think I was getting tired!

Headed back up Melbourne St towards the SLQ, but halfway there I knew I was tired, so turned around and simply headed back to the train station and went through the whole stuff I'd put up with on the way in: train back to Park Rd, bus back to Banoon, train back to Bethania. I didn't get home until 3.30, when all I'd done in SLQ was a one hour presentation and a short lunch!

I never paid the fee for going to every presentations at BWF, but in the last two days I've seen three things I wanted to... well, that should have been five but I'm not disappointed with the three. The cheap transport, even l-o-n-g travel today, made this weekend very cheap for me. Even my lunch at Collector's Cafe was only $6.50.

I would like to thank BWF for what they put on. They've spent a lot of their own time moderating presentations, doing introductions which they've become very good at, and never ignoring the audiences. The authors and any other person who presented for audiences were well-written about in the BWF "UpLit" program. Your team is full of individuals who have helped. I wish I lived a lot closer and could go to anything I wanted to.

Perhaps next year...
 

Brisbane Writer's Festival

BWF started earlier this week, on 5^th September. I couldn’t have gone into the festival in CBD, but this morning I went to two author’s presentations: Chris Cleave at north Logan library at Underwood, and Kate Pullinger at the library at the Hyperdome. Very different authors, but both very good. 

Chris Cleave presented his latest book Everyone Brave is Forgiven. That talked about how young adults in WWII wrote to each other. He had received a wicker full of love letters written on soft, thin blue paper from his mother. The letters were between his grandparents. It got me thinking.

Knowledge or agreement will never happen if it started with people. Rape, Indigenous, disabled, unemployed: every person I have ever met has different thoughts about anything they’ve heard about. For instance, gay marriage is now to be put forward by government for a plebiscite, but I think it should be included in the law. The government doesn’t like a suggestion of a treaty, but does not spend any serious time on Indigenous people (NZ has a treaty with Maori which works very well). Sexual violence has only, in the last decade, come forward and Catholic church people are now being taken through court – but universities are far behind. Disabled and unemployed people are simply dumped into poverty, and very few people would ever know about poverty let alone fight against it (I wonder how many people actually know the increased number of unemployed and the decreased number of available jobs).

I liked the book title Everyone Brave is Forgiven, because if the government listened to where they go – which they should, because they are supposed to represent people – then many more people like Rosie Batty, Hetty Johnston and Adam Goodes would be forgiven for behaving brave. And they should be supported!

As I wrote this, I looked into a website called Australian Bravery Association to see who gets those sort of awards. I remembered an accident that my friend Anne and I drove past earlier last year. A car had gone completely off the road and landed in a tree, off the ground which was a downhill ditch. We pulled over, put my hazard indicators on and, alongside one other vehicle, got the child out of the car in the tree, kept the driver covered and called the fire department. In my orange safety vest I cut the rest of the traffic to one lane and slowed them down until the fire department arrived. I didn’t feel this was ‘bravery’, but it might have been… if we had deserved any simple ‘thank you’.

Cleave’s books include Little Bee, The Other Hand, Incendiary and Gold. I handed in one of my own first books, First Person Singular, and Kylie, the hostess, told me that she would pass it on to be entered into the library. 

Kate Pullinger, a Canadian who has lived in UK, gave a short reading from one of her latest books, Landing Gear, which was written 2 years ago. She also has Mistress of Nothing, 2009, which was set in Luxor in 1863; and Letter to an Unknown Soldier, edited by Pullinger and Neil Bartlett.

Pullinger writes in different genres, not just the same that a publisher might ask for, and her website shows much of that. Her writing was included in short stories books. At the meeting today she showed us an introduction on the screen for Inanimate Alice, a digital project for schools which was started in 2005 and Flight Paths, a networked novel.

I asked her how she was moving forward online and she talked about ePub3, the latest app. She said that Amazon and Kindle haven’t moved forward in the last 5 years, and have been taken over by apps like ePub which can be used to make a publication available on the latest smart-phones. I had a quick look at the website which talked about this – and I need to read much more! I certainly hope that I can change my Kindle to ePub 3.0.1 because it sounds a lot better.

I handed another of my first book First Person Singular there as well.

The last day, tomorrow/Sunday, has a number of free authors presenting at QAG, GOMA, the SLQ auditoriums and elsewhere there. It also includes a “philosophical bang” show to end the festival.

Philosophers-in-Residence: Closing Address Philosophers-in-Residence, Antonia Case and Professor Frederick d’Agostino, will close the show with a philosophical bang! Presented by the University of Queensland

Sunday 11 September, Maiwar Green, SLQ, 5.30pm–6.30pm, Free

If you live in Brisbane it might be very good for you to go to any of the free stuff. Have a great weekend!