Wednesday 20 August 2008

Stitching by the poolWell, I'm actually in the dining room looking out at the pool. I'm stitching in the ditch, trying to get this quilt finished for Larissa in time to take it up to her in Olympia when David and I drive north at the end of the month. The machine's out because I'm also trying to finish piecing Lily's quilt.
:: Talking of pools, the health authorities are checking all the pools in San Diego county by helicopter, looking for green ones. Apparently, with declining housing values, there are now a lot of empty houses about, the result of foreclosures as much as lack of sales. Neglected pools in this warm summer can soon turn green with algae (like ours did last year when the pump died) and the dreaded mosquitoes start to breed. The big fear here is the spread of West Nile fever, which is mozzie-borne. If the helicopter crew spots a green pool, the owners are then encouraged either to clean it or to put some fish in it to take care of the mosquito larvae.
I haven't seen a mosquito in San Diego that I can remember — or a blowie, or even many flies. But apparently West Nile fever has spread into California from the east as far as the Salton Sea, which is about 120 km from here. So caution is a good thing.
:: Went to see the therapist about my back on Saturday. Fixed! She calls herself a 'holistic healer', and she has a sports medicine background to which she has melded some alternative therapies — amazing. It took two and a half hours of being pummelled like Mike Tyson, from head to toe, but I woke up the next day completely pain free. A-n-d she even loosened up my right hip, which has been clicking and stiffening up for a few years. Very grateful for my friend's recommendation.

3 comments:

Fairlie - www.feetonforeignlands.com said...

Wow - that therapist sounds like some kind of witch doctor! How fantastic to be pain-free after one session.

What kind of fish are the authorities recommending for the green swimming pools? I immediately starting thinking of all those suburban pools teeming with piranha.

Lesley said...

There has to be a B-movie in that idea!
The county just mentions 'mosquito larva-eating fish'. They'd have to be pretty tough to survive one of those warm, thick, soupy green pools!
You get the fish free of charge if your pool's gone off.

One session! Honest! But then, she did say she'd done a semester at the University of Adelaide, so there you go.

Anonymous said...

I think everyone should have a therapist like that!

We have fresh water mollies in a tank outside and they eat moosquito larvae. They also love to eat green algae.