I get them at times, mainly on my fingers. I have poor circulation though.

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Read all about my travels in South America...

I get chilblains but usually only on my right hand (I've got nerve damage in my neck that affects my upper limbs, with the right side worse than the left). However this winter, after getting a few chilblains I remembered to wear gloves every day when walking the dogs, and I didn't get any more.

But I live in Australia, where it rarely gets to freezing temperature overnight. I imagine I would have more problems with chilblains if I lived in a cold climate.

I tend to get mine with changes of temperature, not with extreme cold. I get them a lot when I go on holidays to warm places, because it's hot outside but then cool inside with aircon.

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Read all about my travels in South America...

The winter of 62/3 was the first one I remember suffering from chilblains - I would have been 7 at the time. I continued to suffer them for several winters, but I haven't for many years now.

I'm not sure I grew out of them. I think it's more to do with the generally milder winters.

I also remember my fingers turning white and becoming numb when we were doing outdoor games lessons at grammar school. We played on area of common land near the school , which was very exposed. Even more memorable was the pain, as the feeling returned to my hands!

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''He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Jim Elliot

Glasses. In CS-land, they seem to act like braces on teeth: you wear them as a teenager, and then your vision is magically corrected and you don't need them any more. Where did that idea come from?!

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

One's sight does change in ones teens. I became more short-sighted in the short-sighted eye, but I think the long-sighted one improved. Then I types a thesis and the squint no-one had noticed took over...
To cut a long story short - I can now see across a room with one eye but can no longer read with it - the other needs +6.5 for reading AND the squint is playing up again.

I know the angle of astigmatism can change (mine has) but Bride's disappearing...

We need Beecharmer on this!

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"Lack of planning on your part does not necessarily mean an emergency on mine"

"Association does not infer causality"

I originally had glasses when I started school because to correct a squint. Sadly then they realised that I was also short-sighted so although my squint was corrected I continue to wear glasses many decades later.

Fingers turning numb and white - Is that not Raynaud's disease? My hands used to go like this when hanging out the washing in not such freezing weather. Just an extreme reaction to cold.

A lot of people wear glasses as children and through formal education but give them up as adults - less need for reading and writing. My husband had the same pair of glasses for close work from the age of 17 to 35, and only replaced them when his Dad stood on them! Now in his 50's he wears them ( or contact lenses ) all the time.

Isn't hot milk supposed to contain tryptophan or something, which does help sleep?

Meanwhile, my mother recalls the winter of 1958/9, when the house was unheated and she said she had chilblains going up the back of her legs, and told my father that even if we didn't eat much the next winter, we had to have proper heating! I remember lovely paraffin heaters (lovely smell!), and being snuggled up in bed, although hot-water bottles were reserved for illness. And frost on the insides of the windows, especially at school.

I still prefer a cool bedroom and open window. In the motor home it's lovely when it's cold - we wrap up in thick pyjamas and bedsocks, with hot-water bottles and maybe even a rug over the duvet, and are lovely and warm, even when it was -20 C outside (this was a mistake, as the insulation on the water pipes wasn't quite up to it, so we had no running water in the morning, and no heating, either. Sleeping in a cold van is one thing; dressing in one quite another!).

The "trytophan helps sleep" is true - for some types of sleep - and is exactly the opposite for others.
In any case, a single glass of milk would not deliver a therapeutic dose. Research suggests that warm milk does not help sleep except, perhaps, as a "comforter".

It was one of those very popular old wives' tales. Even in the 1980s, one of my teachers used to be obsessed with the idea that we should all have a hot milky drink before bedtime on the night before an exam!

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

I find hot milk makes me nice and sleepy. Of course, I don't drink hot milk unless it's got brandy or rum, and a bit of vanilla, and some honey or molasses, and maybe some cinnamon in it.

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Ring the bells that still can ring; Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything; That's how the light gets in
Anthem: Leonard Cohen

Mmm, that's sounding nice!

Slightly off topic, but it doesn't deserve a full thread and this one is the best fit that I can find.

Is hayfever ever mentioned in any of the books? I ask because I'm currently in southern Germany and there's a peculiar phenomenon here. It's happened twice in the 5 spring visits that I've made. You wake up one morning and everywhere is covered in pollen. And I mean covered, there's actually a very visible layer of it - it has to be seen to be believed. (I'm sorry now that I didn't take a picture of it!) It must be an absolute nightmare for anyone who's allergic to it. The first time I came across it, 3 years ago, was worse again than this year. Achensee is only about 30 miles from here, so I can't imagine it escaped. (Berchtesgaden certainly didn't and that's a good 70 miles distant.)

It only seems to last a few days and it's not every year, so unless she happened to be here at the right time in the right year, EBD may well never have been aware of it.

I don't think hayfever was ever mentioned - I started to read the books when I was eight and as someone who suffered terribly from hayfever from about the age of five I think I would have noticed!

A quick google indicates that it is tree pollen at this time of year, with birch a particular culprit...

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Cestina's dolls houses - Just the Right Shoe

I think you're right that it came from birch trees Cestina. My knowledge of trees isn't great, so I've just had a google too. A few days ago we had quite a strong wind and I found several of what I now know are birch catkins on my balcony afterwards.

The pollen count here must go completely through the roof for the few days it's at it's worst. According to google results, it's still very high even now.

We have pollen like that in the north too. I always notice it on our front door. Our pollen warnings for today are for several tree pollens, birch, as you've both mentioned and oak is high too.

Bringing this back on topic. I have allergic tendencies but only suffer mildy. My parents didn't realise that my blocked nose and wheezing were allergies. It really is only relatively recently that we have become so well-informed about them and it has been reported that they are on the increase. If she didn't suffer from hay-fever, asthma, even excema, it is possible that EBD wasn't aware how debilitating such allergic reactions can be. She does mention pupils sneezing and others commenting about hoping the person isn't getting a cold. (Report it Matey, no thanks). Perhaps some of those sneezes were allergy-related?

For me it was never the sneezing that was the main problem, it was the itchy, streaming eyes, throat itching beyond bearing and the nose bleeds that went along with it.

It all pretty well vanished when I reached my mid-forties or thereabouts, with just the occasional outburst.

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Cestina's dolls houses - Just the Right Shoe

I was told eyesight can change from childhood to adulthood by my optometrist. Mine certainly did. The glasses I wore in my early teens wore the complete opposite of what I needed as an adult. My astigmatism certainly improved over my adult years and my eyes have finally settled into the same script once I reached my 40's.

So I can certainly understand the girls only needing glasses for a short period of time. I know the use of computers has certainly negatively impacted on people's eyesight and more people need glasses if they do a lot of computer work or reading than if they don't. There are also eye exercises you can do to improve your eyesight and they certainly worked with me to improve the astigmatism.

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You should live each day as though you are going to live forever and as though you will die tomorrow.