Spring has sprung, Daylight Savings starts tonight, and I’ve got a cold!

Ah, the turbulence of spring! Daffodils, freesias, lambs, storms, headcolds and spring cleaning.

Technically, spring starts on the 1st of September in the Southern Hemisphere, but it never feels like spring to me till we start Daylight Savings.

Today for the first time, we’ve opened the kitchen doors to our deck, dragged down the cushions for the swing seat, and I lay out in the weak spring sunshine. Then it went away and I lay out some more wrapped in a quilt, because it was still good to be out in the fresh air.

@sift666 has a cold too, but he’s being manly about it, and still doing a few jobs. He started the garden spring clean with a bit of an inventory of what survived the winter and what is looking rather seedy. Then went for a stroll down to the garden centre, and came back with some strawberry plants. We’ve never grown strawberries before, but this is our year to try.

We’re rather haphazard gardeners, with mixed results in our fruit and vege garden. We can grow beetroot, spinach and silverbeet and once managed a pretty good pumpkin (yes, just one). The following year, all our pumpkin plants started with a hiss and a roar, but petered out before they actually bore fruit. Carrots, broccoli and cauliflower have been similarly unsuccessful. But we don’t give up, and maybe this year, something new will grow splendidly.

On the plus side, the rest of our garden is looking rather good, with lots of New Zealand native hebes and grasses, and a few well chosen trees.

House spring cleaning will have to wait a bit, till the weather is a bit more settled. Only two weeks ago, we had three days with worse storms than we had the whole winter, and rain is forecast for tomorrow. But I’m not up to it anyway; my body is spring cleaning.

Some people refer to “catching” a cold, but I don’t believe in that.

Sometimes we blame poor immunity. But I can’t blame my immunity at the moment – we’ve had a pretty stressful winter (which I won’t go into now) but we didn’t “catch” anything.

I usually think of a cold as my body’s way of telling me to slow down and take a rest.

Another naturopathic way of looking at colds is that they’re our body’s way of cleansing. A good way to get rid of a bunch of dead cells and other gunk. OK, I can go with that - have a restful weekend and still be virtuously cleaning.

Here’s my plan to support myself while cleansing:

• Obey my body’s request for extra rest. It’s a fairly light cold, so I admit I’ve done a bit of Steeming today. But in between I’ve rested. I had an Epsom salts bath this morning, and later snoozed out on the deck. And soon, I’ll prop myself up in front of the TV and watch a funny movie or two.

• Next most important is loads of extra vitamin C (I’m aiming for 9-12 grams of liposomal) as well as my usual supplements

• Be particularly careful to eat nourishing foods. Breakfast was some grass fed mince (ground beef) sautéed in ghee, and with Paleo (almond flour) toast, plus an orange. Lunch was a cashew milk smoothie with pear, free range eggs and collagen hydrolysate (a form of gelatin). I’ve taken some chicken broth out of the freezer and will make soup with butternut squash, ginger and turmeric for dinner, plus some eye fillet steak.

• I’ve been out in the fresh air today, but tomorrow will depend on the weather

• I’m keeping myself hydrated with mineral water, herb teas or hot lemon and ginger drinks

Off to rest now, and I’ll come and post this just before bed.

Thanks for reading. (And hopefully upvoting. Remember that the 5 vote limit was never implemented.)

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The orange pic is from Pixabay, and the rest are our own.

My previous nutrition posts:
• The wide variety of so-called healthy diets out there and what the commonality is with them all
• The travels of Weston A Price and his discoveries of what was included in a range of healthy diets.
• Good fats vs bad fats
• GAPS diet for autism and othert chronic illnesses