Fevered thoughts

                                     SOME OF OUR LEMONS
Is it feed a fever starve a cold or vice versa? I expect there are endless answers to that question on the Web. Whichever I just hate having a cold, its worse in the summer, at least in the winter you can eat comforting food and whatever the adage, I am going with feed this cold.
I dont get them very often thank goodness, I always take great care of myself when I do. Well quiet apart for the fact that going out and about sneezing and coughing, breathing my sore throat germs around is very anti social I know it can agravate my Fibromyalgia rheumatica if  "I try to work through" the bug.
so its coddling for me.( what a strange word but you know what I mean)
Honey and lemon, and not the stuff you buy at the Famacia, real  honey and fresh lemons from the tree in our garden. We are amazed at the number of lemons on our tree despite the ill treatment it received from the guys who dug out the pool last summer.

Natural remedies involving lemons are very popular here especially with those who lived through the harsh times not so many years ago.Although its hard to imagine the harsh and cruel years under Franco the way things are going these homemade treatments may well have a revival.
You find a Salud, Health Centre; in every town these days but it was very different within living memory. In the Vega Baja where we used to live there was one Doctor for the whole area, the poorer people quiet literally had to look after themselves and their families. Abuelo would have a store of folklore and knowledge gained through experience and nessecity that was the first line against sickness. Joaquin stilll remembers many of the remedies his own grandmother used to try to keep them well.
 So, as I pick my lemons and mix the honey and hot water and will be counting myself very lucky indeed that all have is this rotten cold!

A little foot note that echos a warning through history: Richard Nixon said when Franco died "General Franco was a loyal friend and ally of the United States." The United States established a diplomatic and trade alliance with Spain ignoring the fact that  Franco maintained his control in Spain through the implementation of austere measures: the systematic suppression of dissident views through censorship and fear along with  the imprisonment of ideologically opposed enemies . Those who opposed him were put in concentration camps throughout the country. There was forced labour in prisons and the use of the death penalty and heavy prison sentences as deterrents for his ideological enemies. Long Live America indeed.