A lovely idyllic boat trip...
... along the Shannon in Eire, visiting the family's ancestral home, boating along lochs and down the river with my parents and brother. I was about 8, I think.

We moored up near the Dublin Canal one night in June, as the caddis flies started to emerge from their pupating stage. Funny little brown moth-like things, they got everywhere, but they're not nasty, not really.

Except for me. Never been allergic to anything before this, but some partical in the air that these caddis flies gave off didn't like my lungs. Slowly, over the course of the evening, I found it harder and harder to breathe. Some time around midnight my parents were telling my brother off for not sleeping and fidgeting when he said "I can't sleep because *he's* doing Darth Vader impressions" and mum and Dad came to see what was going on.

By this point I couldn't breathe in more than a gasp, and that was with some effort. No-one knew what to do. We were in the middle of nowhere on the river. Dad ran off to find a phone, and I went red then pale grey (apparently).
A doctor arrived (there was a permanently moored house-boat with a phone down the river) and gave me an injection of adrenaline, which sorted me out a treat I can tell you.
Ever since then, I've had all the allegies you could imagine: moulds, hayfever, asthma, glue, nickel, etc, etc...

So aside from nearly killing me and making the rest of my life difficult and beginning my hatred of summer and the counrtyside - it was a great holiday.
( no cake for the impuritay Patrick Stewart hasn't aged since, Tue 26 Apr 2005, 10:24, Reply)