…is the foulest substance known to man. Having just gotten to the end of my third 330ml carton of the day, I feel qualified to make this judgement. I have been trying to drink it because I believe it to be good for me but it is absolutely thoroughly disgusting and so far the only effect it has had is to make me feel vaguely nauseous Indeed, it has just occurred to me to wonder whether there is an upper bound on the amount of cranberry juice a person is recommended to consume within a 24 hour period and whether I am in danger of surpassing it. I should perhaps have googled “cranberry juice side effects” before I started drinking it, but don’t dare to now because whatever they are I am sure I will be able to convince myself I am suffering from them.

In between cranberry juice, I have also been drinking chalk. At least, I have been drinking a sachet of water soluble white powder which is what Boots prescribes to treat a small infection from which I am suffering. As far as I can see it is just chalk, and it cost me £3.49. I don’t doubt that I could have got a better deal at the Early Learning Centre, and it would probably have come in more exciting colours than white

I think that the instructions which Boots put on their medication is highly inadequate. Three sachets of this powder are supposed to be drunk per day over a two day period in order to effect a cure, but there is no guidance as to whether these should be drunk at regular intervals or all at once. Moreover, there is no instruction as to the optimum amount of water in which to dissolve a sachet. A “glass” of water, it says. I didn’t have a glass when I purchased it, so I decided to empty a sachet into my 500ml bottle of Evian. This had the advantage that I was able to shake it and stop all the granules condensing into a foul gloop at the bottom, but it was ultimately a mistake as it took me about four hours to sip such a large volume of the resulting foul-tasting mixture My second sachet I made up in a plastic cup out of the water cooler at work, but managed to knock half of it over with my mouse

Chalk is not an enjoyable thing to drink, and so the manufacturers have helpfully decided to flavour it. All well and good, until you take your first mouthful and realise they have flavoured it with cranberry. Why on earth would anyone choose to flavour something with a taste so repulsive as cranberry?!

Sigh. I am drinking these concoctions in an attempt to cure myself without a visit to the doctor. I very much want to avoid seeing my doctor because I know what will happen when I do; he will firstly tell me I must be imagining that there is something wrong with me and he will secondly offer me a cervical smear test. This latter is what I am particularly anxious to avoid – I actually *do* need a cervical smear test now, but was engaged in a long running battle with him for years in which I maintained I did not every time he proposed it as a solution to completely unrelated problems from which I was suffering. I genuinely didn’t need one back then, and the only reason I do now is obviously that my lifestyle has changed, but I’m childish and don’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking he has won I’m hoping to get away without any more doctors visits at all until the Autumn, when I’ll hopefully be thinking about moving to Leicester and registering with a new GP who can’t possibly be any ruder than the one I have at the moment…

I actually feel totally rubbish though. I was walking along the High Street at lunch and my eyes kept trying to close. I don’t have a cold and I can’t have hayfever yet because I haven’t sneezed, but my head feels kinda foggy like it would with a cold and I just seem to want to sleep. Admittedly I didn’t sleep hardly at all Monday night because I was in a bit of pain, but I slept fine until 5am this morning so I shouldn’t be so bad. In fact, I suspect that a cup of coffee might sort me out but I have been refraining from caffeine so that it doesn’t exacerbate the problem from which I am suffering.

I have decided that I am addicted to caffeine

In other news, I lost my pedometer in the toilet this morning This is the second pedometer which I have lost in a toilet since December I do, however, have a spare somewhere, if I can remember where I put it for safekeeping.

Tags: chalk, cranberry juice, pedometer

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 2:41 pm and is filed under Random rambling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.