Self treatment for a cold

We are not talking about flu here, but just your common cold which does not require a visit to your doctor as you don't want to occupy his valuable time when he has more serious patients to attend to. Neither do you need to get a prescription for anti-biotics as a cold is a virus and will not respond to anti-biotics. (The mis-use of antibiotics has been the main cause of the return of TB (tuberculosis and of MRSA (meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), commonly known as the flesh eating disease.

Having said this, if you are elderly, have chronic respiratory problems or if you notice signs that your cold has lead to an infection in your chest, well then yes, you should visit your doctor as soon as possible. The first sign of infection is a temperature and a feeling of heaviness in the chest alongside coughing up phlegm with a greenish colour.

But if you are a reasonably fit and healthy person you can quite easily cure your cold at home.

The first signs of the common cold are usually a sore throat on the first day, followed the next day or even that night by watery eyes, sneezing and runny or blocked nose.

Fluids
Water and liquids is the first attack as you have to keep your body well hydrated. Chicken broths are particularly good as they give you protein, liquid and warmth all in one. Vitamin C taken in any form (for example, oranges) is another attack.

Over the counter cold medicines
If your throat remains sore, prepare yourself a lemon and honey drink or ask your local chemist for 'Lemsip'. These come in sachets and each sachet is equivalent to one drink. Lemsip usually contains some paracetamol as well which will help with any ill feeling that you probably have.
Here are a few more things that you will need from your chemist:

• Optrex eye drops to cool down your irritated and watery eyes.
  
• Paper handkerchiefs that can be thrown away immediately after use.
  
• Lip balm as lips tend to dry and crack a lot during a cold.
  
• Vaseline for when your nose gets sore and red from so much blowing.
  
• Antihistamine tablets to deal with nose congestion (more about this below).
  
• Eucalyptus oil to apply on your handkerchiefs or pillow to ease breathing.
  
• Saline drops for decongesting.
  
• Vicks Vapour Rub to use in vapour inhalations.
  

Rest and fight the virus
You must rest and keep in a constant temperature, neither too warm nor too cold. You need to rest in order to reserve all your energy for fighting back at the cold and you want to keep in a constant temperature so that you don't provoke more shivers or sweats.
Don't sit in the sun - the sun is usually good for us in short doses but not when you have a cold, and apart from anything else the heat will make your nasal membranes swell up more and consequently make you feel even more blocked.

If you smoke, try and stop or if not at least cut down.

Congestion
This seems to be the most uncomfortable part of any cold, not so much when it is runny, but more when it starts to get blocked. It is firstly not recommended at all to resort to nasal decongestants as there is a risk of suffering from a rebound effect.

(I myself got addicted to them once, to the point that I couldn't get to sleep without using them. My nose was permanently feeling blocked whether I had a cold or not. This was due to the fact that the inner membrane of my nose was constantly swollen due to the irritation of the nose drops. It took me about six months to wean myself off them)

Probably the most effective and safest product to use, and even babies can use it, are saline drops. These come in the form of nose drop bottles but literally contain salt and water. When you pump up into each nostril a small amount of saline, sniffing upwards strongly, you will get the same fresh sensation as when you dive into the sea. Saline drops can be used as often as you like and have no side effects at all.

It is a good idea also to use an antihistamine medicine (in the form of tablets) which you can get without prescription from your chemist. This will help to keep your nose unblocked and also minimize the amount of mucus that it produces. This is important because the less mucus you have in your nose, the less mucus that can fall down into your chest.

At night, in a horizontal position it is also quite likely that your nose will feel even more blocked. In order to alleviate this problem just use an extra pillow, while your cold lasts, so that you sleep slightly inclined and this will help quite a bit.

Another idea is to put a few drop of eucalyptus oil on your pillow. The smell of this will help to clear your nasal passage.

Hopefully, treating your cold like this, it will last no more than three days. Although, there is one last thing that you have to make sure that you do and that is to clear your chest of any phlegm. Phlegm/mucus left in your chest/lungs acts like a stagnant pond collecting all sorts of bacteria, and this is where infections and complications could arise. The body's natural defence mechanisms will try and take care of this for you when it makes you cough, but you must make sure that when you cough, you cough the phlegm up and out and do not swallow it.

When you feel that you have phlegm to bring out, it's probably best to go to the privacy of your bathroom, bend over the wash basin and cough it up and out, making sure to wash the basin afterwards. If you have trouble coughing phlegm out you can try the following trick. Fill your wash basin with boiling hot water, drop a teaspoon of vicks vapour rub into the water, place a towel over your head and try and inhale the vapour for as long as you can. These vapours will help to liquefy the phlegm and make it easier to cough out.
Always remember to wash your hands frequently, as hands are the main way of passing your cold onto other people, or catching it from others if you hadn't got one already.

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HOW TO CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS ON THE DOLE

How to celebrate Christmas when you're on the dole

Christmas is nearly upon us again and while it is supposed to be a festive occasion, there will be many this year who will have neither the spirit of mind nor the money in order to celebrate it. There are so many who have lost their jobs due to the economic crisis and for them their main worry is not how they are going to celebrate Christmas, but more how are they going to get through each day.

But having said that, maybe an effort in rejoicing it just a little, or at least in the best way as one can, may help to lift the spirits and make one forget about all the worries, if only for just a little while.

Remembering that the most important thing is that you spend the day with your family or loved ones, one can make a festive atmosphere that need not cost much.

Hopefully most homes will have an artificial Christmas tree which they re-use each year and avoids the felling down of real trees, and along with this they probably also have the balls and ribbons that they use to decorate the tree. So this is a good start and one can get all the family involved in dressing up the tree.

If one never had an artificial tree then a plant in the home can be dressed up with balls and ribbons and serve as a small Christmas tree. Place it on a table instead of the floor and it will appear bigger!

Go out for a brisk walk carrying a whicker basket, carrier bag or whatever, and try to collect as many pine cones as one can find. These can all be spray painted in gold and/or silver with some being tied up with red ribbon and attached to the front door, while others can be placed on top of picture frames or paintings.

Light up red candles around the room as this gives a very cosy feel to the place, although make sure that you place the candles inside glasses in order to avoid the risk of fire.

Look through your music, whether it be your CD's, ipod or whatever and select all the nicest Christmasy music that you can find and play it. Music is one of the best things for getting people in the mood. If you don't have a good collection you can always download a few songs from iTunes which wont cost that much.

Now get everyone to join in to lay the table and use all the best crockery that you have and if you don't have any 'best' just use what you have and liven up the whole table by scattering more painted pine cones tied up with red bows, a few more glasses filled with red candles and also red paper napkins.
For the meal you can serve up the following which is a low budget, but just as nourishing, meal:

A warm bowl of chicken soup. It can be tinned or packet, although tinned usually tastes much better. Fry some diced bread in a little oil until golden and this can then be sprinkled on the soup in order to give it a special touch. This will warm everyone up.

For the main course you can serve thin turkey slices. They usually come in sealed plastic packets and don't cost a lot. Around €1 for a packet with 8 slices.

Get some cocktail saugsages and fry them until browned.

Whisk up some deydrated potato mash, following the instructions on the packet, while adding a little butter, milk and salt to make it tastier.
Boil some frozen brussel sprouts until tender and then add a bit of salt and butter to them.

And finally make a nice hot gravy to pour over everything. Bisto granules are very easy to use for this and adding a few drops of red wine to the mixture makes it all the more delicious.

For the desert you can buy a pre-baked sponge case, fill it with peach halves (from a tin) and then cover with whipped cream.

If your budget can stretch to a bottle of wine, then all well and good, but if not there are some very good table wines nowadays, with as low as 11% (or even 10%) alcohol content. They usually come in cartons and cost as little as €1. The plus point about having this low alcohol wine, apart from the low price, is that no one will get too drunk and hopefully there will not be the usual Christmas arguments caused by drink!

And finally at the end of the meal one can offer coffee accompanied by marshmallows.

None of the above is expensive and indeed most of the ingredients might already be in your kitchen, so this is a way of celebrating Christmas without having to fork out a lot of money but at the same time a way of having a sort of Christmas meal with your family.

Oh, and as for presents - a big kiss to all your loved ones is a good enough present in these hard times. The important thing is to be together and NOT how much money has been spent.

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Easy to make Chicken Curry

Source: curry

Source: Tzatziki

Source: pineapple cubes

Source: curry with basmati rise

 

 

This is a recipe for a chicken curry that is relatively easy to make and truly delicious to eat!

Ingredients for four people:
4 chicken breasts diced
1 large onion diced
1 large red pepper diced
small jar of mango chutney
generous handful of sultanas
1 desert spoon of madras curry powder (medium/hot)
1 banana sliced

Heat to the maximum a non stick saucepan with some extra virgin olive oil and fry the diced onion and pepper until the onion is transparent and the pepper soft.

Meanwhile, season the diced chicken breasts with salt and black pepper and fry in another saucepan. Once the chicken is cooked and has turned golden in colour, add it to the saucepan with the onion and pepper.

Now lower the heat slightly and add the madras curry stirring well until everything is well impregnated with the curry powder. Immediately after, add the jar of mango chutney and once it is empty re-fill with water and add this water to the saucepan as well.

Let everything simmer for about ten minutes and then add the sultanas and banana slices and simmer for another ten minutes.

This curry is best served with basmati rice. Although as it is a medium to hot dish it should also be accompanied by some mouth cooling morsels, so offer diced cucumber, diced honey melon, pineapple cubes, diced tomatoes and a yoghurt and cucumber sauce which is known as Tzatziki. Pita bread or popadoms can also be placed on the table.

In the summer it makes a nice change to serve this curry with a green lettuce salad with a yoghurt dressing.

As with nearly all curries, they are best eaten the next day or even two or three days later as the flavour of the curry has more time to penetrate into the chicken. So once everything has cooled down after cooking, place in a Tupperware and store in your fridge until needed.

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Spanish Omelette and how to make it

Source: cooking stages

Source: turning the omelette over

Source: finished omelette

Source: omelette with red peppers

Source: omelette can be served hot or cold

 

Making a Spanish omelette seems quite simple, after all it's only some eggs and potatoes thrown together and cooked, but really it's the way you put them together that is important. After having lived in Spain for over 30 years and married to a Spaniard I can confidently say that this recipe works every time, and my husband can vouch for me!

Ingredients:
3 medium potatoes peeled and diced or sliced
6 eggs beaten
1large onion diced
salt
pepper
extra virgin olive oil
a small pinch of garlic powder
medium sized non stick frying pan
large plate or flat lid (large enough to cover the frying pan)
wooden or non stick spatula
oven glove

First fry the diced potatoes in a frying pan until they are soft and ALMOST about to turn golden, but not quite.

When they are done drain off as much oil as possible and then add them to a large bowl.

Now in the same pan add the diced onion and also fry until soft and transparent.

Once done also add the onion, after draining off excess oil, to the large bowl and add the 6 beaten eggs, some salt and pepper and a pinch of garlic powder.

Now re- heat the frying pan to the maximum and then pour in enough olive oil to lightly grease the whole of the pan. Once hot pour all of the mixture from the large bowl into the frying pan and let the mixture set for no longer than a minute. After this time, lower the heat and start slipping the wooden spatula under the omelette to make sure that it is not sticking underneath and to also tidy up the edges.

Let it continue to cook for about ten minutes and then place the plate or flat lid on top of the pan, put your right hand into an oven glove and while holding the lid firmly down with your right hand, turn the the pan upside down with your left hand. Remove the pan and you will have the omelette on the plate or lid showing the underside of the omelette which should look cooked and golden.

Now pour a few more drops of oil into the pan and very carefully slide the omelette from the lid back into the pan so as to cook the other side. Continue sliding the spatula underneath to keep anything from sticking and also to use it to compact the edges.

TIP: If you feel that you didn't put enough oil in the pan and that the omelette is starting to stick in places, just lift the omelette up at one side with the spatula and pour some more oil underneath.

After about another five minutes the omelette should be cooked and ready to serve or if preferred it can be left to cool, when it is as equally delicious, and served with a fresh salad or just tomatoes.

There are many ways in which this dish can be varied in order to make it a little more special. Different ingredients can be added to the final mixture before frying the omelette and below are a few examples.

fried red and green peppers
salami
green runner beans (already boiled)
cooked spinach and grated cheese
can of tuna fish
cooked bacon and tomatoes

Although having said this, this writer likes her omelette the simple way

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Drawbacks of Tactile Mobile Phones/Cellulars

It seems that when a new thing comes onto the market any of the previous versions become almost obsolete or if not obsolete at least very difficult to find.

This goes for such things as hoovers because since hoovers without dirt bags became all the rage, it is virtually impossible to find a dirt bag to fit your old model.

Now that we have digital cameras just see if you can find a spare part for your old fashioned but loyal Kodak that you’ve looked after carefully for years.
And for us more mature women, ever since the trend was set for wearing hipster jeans and trousers, (although hipster may not be the right word as they barely reach the top of one’s bottom), it seems that shops no longer stock the good old fashioned jeans that zipped up to your waist and acted as a very effective ‘stomach puller in’!

And so it goes with the mobile phones. Now that tactile phones are all the rage, you know, iPhone, iPad and I don’t know all the other names, it seems really hard to find an old fashioned mobile phone (or cellular if you are in America) that you can operate by pressing keyboard buttons. It seems we are all being forced to use the tactile ones.

Well not out of choice but more like that I had no choice, I got one of these tactile phones about six months ago and did all my best to get used to it. I think six months shows that I did give it my all including all my perseverance. But after six months I have well and truly had it now and I will tell you for why and also ask whether any other more mature person like myself has experienced the same problem.

For starters I suppose I should say that there is one thing positive about them and that is that their high pixel cameras produce really super photos but having said that I have a very nice camera of my own at home and so don’t need another even if it is attached to my phone.
So having giving this gadget at least one compliment I will now go on to talk about the main aspects that I find so annoying.

Remembering that these phones function by the use of your fingers on the screen and that’s why they are often referred to as tactile, try making it work when your hands are wet – it won’t respond, wet fingers stop you having a good enough contact with the screen and so the phone just won’t respond. This is very annoying when someone calls you while you are in the kitchen cooking, for example, where more often than not your hands will be wet – I should have told all my friends, Don’t call me when I’m cooking as I won’t be able to answer!!

The same goes for when you have just put on hand cream, it makes your fingers too greasy and slippery and the phone will refuse to respond again.
And then the most frustrating is when it’s freezing cold outside and you have gloves on because in this situation there is not a hope in hell of receiving the call. It won’t respond when you have gloves on and by the time you manage to get them off, the gloves that is, you will probably have lost the call anyway.

Here’s another one and although I know it’s strictly against the law and we shouldn’t do it but I’m sure we’ve all done it at least once, and that is to answer a call while you’re driving. How on earth are you expected to find the dot that you have to touch with one of your fingers to activate the phone or even worse slide an arrow in order to let you answer it, and while doing all that still manage to keep your eyes on the road??!!

In old fashioned mobile phones all you had to do to answer a call, depending on which model you had, was either to slide it open, open a flap or press a button and you could do all that without even looking. It was easy and quick.
Anyway for all you technically minded I hope you enjoy using your tactile phones but this hub was really for us more mature and not so technically minded humans who sometimes prefer doing everything the ‘old fashioned’ way!!!!

I have included some photos of a few old fashioned phones that thank God are still available on the market but I wonder for how much longer .

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Solutions to Sparse or Fine Eye Brows

Although eyebrows are not a feature of the face that are usually commented on or praised, they do indeed have an important role which is to create a frame for the eyes and it is also a fact that without eyebrows one's forehead would seem to be overly large!
Some people have the luck to have nicely formed eyebrows and to have looked after them throughout their lives, while there are others who possibly started off with nice eyebrows but went and over plucked them and now they wont grow back.
Backs in the early 70's the fashion in eyebrows was set by a then popular model called Twiggy who had super thin eyebrows and many are those who over plucked their eyebrows in order to get the 'Twiggy' look. Unfortunately, very soon after a new fashion trend was set by the actress of 'Blue Lagoon', Brooke Shields with her thick bushy eyebrow which left all the 'Twiggy' followers well and truly stumped.
So what solutions are there for eyebrows that are thin and sparse and reluctant to grow back? Well there are several which are outlined below:
Hair transplant surgery
This is a procedure performed as an outpatient under local anaesthetic taking about 3 to 4 hours, depending on how many grafts are needed. Hair follicles are taken from a donor site, usually at the back of the scalp, and then implanted/grafted into the brow area. It will take up to 6 months for the newly grafted hair to grow and then that is it, the new hairs will be there permanently.
Permanent make-up/Tattooing
Permanent make-up or Tattooing are basically the same thing. The brow area is first numbed, either with a gel similar to that used at the dental clinic or ice cubes applied with pressure to the area - both systems work equally well. Although before the procedure begins, the eyebrows will be coloured with a eyebrow pencil so as to show the client what the end result will look like. If the client doesn't like the shape, thickness or colour, changes can be made at this stage. When the client is happy with the way the brows look then the tattooing can begin.
A small machine resembling a staple gun with a needle at the end is filled with the chosen dye colour and applied in the same way as a tattoo, the only difference is that the needle doesn't penetrate the skin as deeply as a tattoo needle does and so consequently although it is called Permanent make-up it will usually only last about two years. The more one goes into the sun, the faster it will begin to fade, so the idea is to keep out of the sun.
The procedure takes about 30 to 40 minutes and is not that painful. During the first two weeks scabs may form but must be allowed to fall off naturally because if one picks at them they could become infected and ultimately alter the end result of the brow. At first the brows may appear a little darker than was intended but this is normal and within two to three weeks will calm down to the colour that was chosen. If one cannot bear those three weeks, a little dusting of face powder over them will soften the colour until they soften on their own.
Waterproof Eye brow pencil
Applying a waterproof eye brow pencil is obviously a quick, easy and painless solution. There are various on the market but Sephora has a good system where the eye brow cream comes in a tube. A very small amount is applied to the back of the hand and with a special brush (also from Sephora), a little is picked up and used to define the eye brows or fill in gaps. With this system one can go swimming and even perspire without the risk of losing ones eye brows as one does with normal eye brow pencils!!
There are four basic colours to choose from but if neither is to your liking one can buy two colours in order to mix them until you arrive at your desired colour.
Eye shadow
Instead of using an eye brow pencil one can also opt for using an eye shadow and brush in order to accentuate the brows. The benefit of this is that there are so many different shades of brown eye shadow out there on the market that it is much easier to find colour that is most suitable for you.
The eye shadow is applied with a moistened brush and any stray particles of shadow can be wiped away with cotton ear buds.
Eye brow dye
And finally for those who have decent eye brows but are so fair that they are hardly visible, well these can be dyed at the hair dressers.

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DOMESTIC ACCIDENTS

Today I realized just how fragile one's life can be and how one stupid mistake can actually go and end it all. I used to laugh as a child when I heard of the man who was sawing a high branch of a tree while sitting on the wrong side of the saw. When the branch actually cracked and went crashing down, the man went with it as he had been sitting on the thin edge of the branch with the saw and the tree trunk facing him.
When we are younger we never think that anything like this will happen to us, in fact very innocently we think that life will go on forever, or maybe analysing the situation, it's just that the young never stop to think about anything and very much less about what the future may hold. But the reality is that life is very fragile.
When you see a video of how a watermelon, which represents a person's head can explode into a million pieces when it crashes in a simulated car crash, you get to understand a little more how delicate we really are.
But my point relates more to the stupid things that we can do within the supposed safety of our own homes and where statistics confirm that the most fatal accidents happen. They are called domestic accidents and they vary from touching an electrical appliance with wet hands to tripping up on a rug. I myself experienced a moment this evening when I thought to myself after the incident that this could have been it, this could have easily been the moment when I left this world forever and all for such a stupid accident.
I was wearing my very long dressing gown which always drapes on the floor before me, I was also sitting at my computer from which I write my articles/hubs and when I got up to walk away from my desk I went and tripped up on the draping part of my dressing gown, which made me fall to the floor beside the corner of a shelving unit, almost hitting the shelving unit with the corner of my forehead (one of the most vulnerable parts of our heads), and although I missed it with my head, my hands that were trying to break my fall, crashed into the unit and caused a huge book to fall down and also just miss my head!!!! It wasn't my day but at the same time it probably was in fact my lucky day.
Can you imagine that in the safety of your own home you could be so close to death? But the truth is that as we spend much of our time in our home a lot of unpleasant things can happen to us there. So in this hub/article I will just point out a few of the stupid little every day things that we do that could, in the worst scenario, go wrong and be the cause of our untimely and stupid death.

• don't touch your electric toaster with wet hands or anything metal. When your toast is done, and you can't get it out easily then fish it out with a wooden spoon after having unplugged the toaster from the socket.
  
• careful when you get out of the bath not to slip. Hang on to both bath rails and keep all your movements slow and calculated. There are lots of people who have killed themselves just by slipping in the bath and hitting their head on the bath taps or even the side of the bath.
  
• Ensure that any rugs that you have are stuck down to the floor with the aid of double sided cello tape. Loose rugs that turn up at the corners are very dangerous and can cause lots of domestic accidents through tripping on them.
  
• Make sure that large expanses of glass doors have stickers placed on them so that you don't forget, when your glass doors are exceptionally clean, that there is a door there.
  
• Careful with the knives that you place in the dishwasher. Always place them downwards, that is with the blade downwards. There have been quite a few accidents where people have gotten their wrists cut simply by adding more crockery to the dishwasher and coming across a blade pointing upwards.
  
• When you climb up onto a stool or ladder make sure that it is well placed on the floor, in other words that it doesn't wobble. If you feel any signs of vertigo, come down again immediately so as to not risk anything. Vertigo up on a ladder can cause you to faint and come crashing down. If it is really important for you to climb that ladder wait until a friend can come round to help or even better wait for the friend, who doesn't have vertigo, to climb up for you.
  
• When you are cooking something on the stove don't leave the kitchen. Stay there until the food has cooked and then turn off the stove. Lots of kitchens go up in flames, which also ends up invading the rest of the dwelling, when people forget about food on the stove and it ends up igniting!!
  
• It is well worth the money to invest in an electrician to come round and check all your electrical sockets, circuits and wires etc. Fires caused by electrical failures or malfunctions represent high percentage of domestic accidents.
  
• When using gas in the home be especially vigilant. Gas is very very dangerous and when used has to be checked constantly to make sure that all the valves are working well and that there are no leaks.
  
• Turn off your television at night from the socket as televisions are also known to cause short circuits and as a result cause fires.
  
• Never smoke in your bedroom. When you are in bed you are already entering the sleeping zone and it would be quite easy for you to doze off forgetting that you have a cigarette in your hand. One shouldn't smoke full stop, but for those that just can't kick the habit be especially careful in the bedroom.
  
• Something as simple as changing a light bulb should have its precautionary rules also. Always replace light bulbs during hours of daylight so this will enable you to turn off the mains and avoid any risk of electrocution. As the saying goes, it is always best to be safe than sorry!!!
  
• This will seem ridiculous to the young but no so much for us older ones, but here goes. When you are about to put on a pair of tights or trousers or jeans, please sit down on a sturdy chair. We may think that we are still young and have the control of all our muscles but the truth is that after the age of 60 trying to balance oneself while placing ones leg into a pair of tights if a very hazardous chore. Don't try it and just sit down on a chair. When we fall or trip it's not that serious, but what is serious is what we hit when we fall or trip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  

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