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Showing posts from May, 2011

Fox hunting and being 'blooded'.

Where I grew up fox hunting was quite a prized part of life. When one first rode with the hunt, the novice hunters would be ‘blooded’ when their first fox was taken. It was exciting. It was primal. It was disgusting. Being 'blooded' was the smearing of fox blood over the faces of those who had not taken a fox before, to the cheers and upturned flasks of other members of the hunt. A young girl sweating with exertion and excitement, being smeared with blood and plied with hard alcohol sounds like something out of a satanic ritual, and yet with hunting season it was not out of the ordinary. All the new hunters went through it, and loved the event. All except the fox, that is. And Mrs. Barlow’s cat, Mittens. Yes. Accidents happen. I remember the day when thirty fox hounds took of yelping and snarling after something in the hedgerow, and all the horses chased excitedly down the narrow farm lane. The clatter of steel shod hunters on the tarmac as we followed the baying hounds into th

How anxiety affects allergies and immunity.

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I sometimes joke with my clients that “you humans are such fragile creatures…” We respond in some surprising ways to the things that happen to us. I recently worked with a client who has suffered for most of her adult life from an allergy to a mould she was exposed to. In recent months her allergies had worsened to include a series of other everyday substances and foods. We eventually traced the first allergy back to a time she had been cleaning out a cellar in a house she had bought. Whilst sorting through some old long abandoned papers in the cellar she found a few personal items belonging to one of the many previous owners of the property. There were a collection of letters and other objects. Being curious by nature, my client examined a few of the letters, which were dated in 1922 and 1923. There were other documents and bits and pieces, and in the gloom of the dark cellar my clients inquisitive nature took hold. In one particular box she found a collection of French photographs t