I swear I once had iron guts.  But the last couple of days, my once granite-like guts seem to be succumbing to some gastric nasties.  My stomach feels like I have eaten 20 meat pies whereas yesterday, I only had 2 cups of cup-o-soup after my weetbix for breakfast.

TL makes it the 3rd country where I have copped giardia and my amateur diagnosis is that I am in the early stages of yet another round.  I was in Lita supermarket at lunchtime and accidentally broke wind in the condiments section.  I fled to the cleaning products aisle fearing I may have injured some of the staff (or they might injure me).

It appears I am not the only one who is suffering from similar gastric difficulties but mercifully, I am still holding it together.  My understanding is that at this time of year when the wet season rolls in, a few nasties that have been lingering on the surface get washed into waterways and into the groundwater system.

The water barrels that we are all familiar with are all sourced from groundwater and if the disinfection procedure at the water factory is not adhered to (which it is supposedly often not), then problems do occur.

For the record, chlorination and/or ozone treatment is not much good for knocking giardia on the head.  UV treatment is better for parasites like giardia.  The UV basically makes the giardia bugs infertile so although they may still get inside you, they can not re-produce inside your guts and do not cause a problem.  Ideally, your premises should have a UV filter unit to be safe.

If not, JS told me that a sensible procedure is to leave the water barrels out in the sunshine for a couple of days if you want to be safe.

…

At times like this, air freshening techniques seem to be the go.  So last night, I dragged out the el-cheapo “essential oil” burner thing I bought in Bali and lit it up about 15 minutes before I went to bed.  I thought a bit of rose oil scent would calm the savage beast and be a pleasant way to head off into the land of nod.  When I returned, the whole thing was in flames and burning a hole in the chest of drawers (ie clothes drawer cabinet thing).  I tried to blow it out on the assumption it was just a candle but it just made the flames worse.  I grabbed food handling tongs from the kitchen and carried the blazing thing outside, hosed water on it and it spat stuff everywhere.  The house stunk of burning petroleum for hours.

The post-mortem was that the tealight candle had a healthy dose of kerosene or similar petroleum product as evidenced by the black stains up the bedroom wall and the damage outside the backdoor.  Moral – don’t buy cheap tealight candles.

Some days – sheesh !