It’s that time of the year, and flowers are the least of my hayfever problems. Photo: Region.
My nose started twitching a few weeks ago, a surefire sign that spring was on its way.
This week, in the last week of calendar winter, the blossoms are out, and the deciduous trees are tinging with green and preparing to burst into leaf.
Even the Floriade flags are out.
It’s a glorious time of the year despite the inevitable chilly relapses.
Yet those twitches also presage the inevitable hayfever attacks of sneezes and wheezes, as well as tears and congestion that come with the dreaded nor’wester.
Spring equals pollen, and in Canberra, there is plenty of that. Word is it’s going to be a bumper season, with the experts pointing the finger at the already high grass growth.
But the real villain to me is pinus radiata.
In the years following the bushfires, the annual spring malaise eased without their malign influence.
There were still a few sneezes and sniffly noses, but not the weepy eyes or the chronically blocked sinuses that almost made it impossible to breathe or get a good night’s sleep.
Now they have grown back where they could, along the Tuggeranong Parkway and other places, lovely green belts that belie their evil progeny, the sticky yellow stuff that blows in with the north wind, coats everything and literally gets up my nose.
When it rains, the gutters run yellow with the stuff, showing just how much Canberra’s otherwise pure air is laden with irritants.
Other trees are apparently poison to people, such as the plane varieties that have fallen out of favour with the arboreal authorities, but for some reason, there’s no stopping fast-growing pinus radiata.
It’s Canberra’s biggest exotic weed.
Perhaps there should be an open slather Christmas tree season. Bring your own axe/chainsaw.
Surely, they could be replaced with more benign species that birds actually like because pine forests are as lively as cemeteries and as quiet as cathedrals.
I know that’s what some people like. Hell, even I don’t mind it sometimes.
But not in spring.
Just do what Canberrans do at this time of the year, I hear you say. Dose up on antihistamines and draw on all the pharmacological weapons in the modern medicinal armoury.
No thanks. The last time I tried that, there were a few hours I couldn’t account for. I don’t care if they say that doesn’t happen anymore. Trust big pharma? Sure.
I’ll stick to good old garlic and horseradish and plenty of vitamin C and stay out of the north wind.
Anybody got a tissue?
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