Nothing says "You're allergic to pistachios!" like a nice case of anaphylaxis...

Imagine my surprise Wednesday night, as I munched on handfuls of pistachio nuts, when I suddenly developed incredibly itchy palms and soles, wooziness, gigantic hives, tingling and swelling lips and tongue and finally breathing difficulties.

Those symptoms alone are enough to scare the hell out of you. When one is alone on the other side of the earth and it's happening, it's bloody terrifying.

I managed to have my wits about me and rang an ambulance. They whisked me off to hospital, pumping me full of adrenalin and oxygen and who knows what else. Then I had a drip jammed into the back of my left hand and regular shots of steroids to help calm everything down.

If I'd been on an episode of E.R., I would have had doctors leaping about yelling "STAT!" a lot.

All this plus six hours under observation in hospital was not on my list of things to do in London. I'd like to lodge a protest.

I spent Thursday in bed, sleeping it all off. Thursday night I spent some quiet time with another thingie, Culfin, who kept me enormously amused. I needed that, I did not fancy sitting in my room brooding about what might have happened.

Needless to say, I've never had an allergic reaction like that before. Ever. I've been eating pistachios for some years now. In fact, I was happily munching on them on the plane as I was flying over. I'm so glad I was on the ground before I discovered they were bad for me. Heaven knows what they would have been able to do mid-air.

I'm glad to say I'm flying home tomorrow. It's been a long three weeks and while most of the stuff I've been able to do for fun has been absolutely magical, the work has been hard and this latest has made me long for home.

The only problem with home is that is not where my boy is and that is where I need him.

I need to do something about that, and soon.

Wish me luck.