Feeling better

Picture obtained from Google image search

Day before yesterday I was stung by monema flavescens caterpillar, (according to weblio a species of slugmoth) which was living on my plum tree. Named Iraga in Japanese, it is apparently the most painful of the hairy caterpillars in Japan, says the pamphlet my doctor gave me: my arm swelled up from hand through to upper arm above the elbow, pain aching through to the lymph
nodes under the armpit, I went to the doctor yesterday and got steroids (yikes) which I am nevertheless taking, and rested all day, so the dogs just had to potter in the garden for exercise after a morning walk courtesy of the other parent. One friend suggested I should use insecticide to kill the caterpillars in my plum tree. No way, now I know to avoid clipping the plum tree for these few weeks in summer. Check out my free One green leaf counting song for kids! Every bit of poison we spray goes back into the environment!This morning the birds woke me at 04:10, and I felt well enough to go off to the park for a stroll, oops, no, Luna was on the go and it was a run for the first 500m or so. It was glorious, nice and cool, initially early enough for nobody to be around, cats and pigeons to stalk, ponds and streams to splosh in, a plethora of sights and smells and morning sounds, and I negotiated to take the shorter walk home because I now had three dirty babies to shower before brekkie. Met many friends on the way home and chatted about our local trimming, Inuya , which offers excellent service at reasonable prices ( and a doggie jacuzzi for an extra 10$/￥1000!) The arm's beginning to feel itchy now, still a little swollen, but today's steroids should settle it, off to ballet tomorrow evening so I want to feel fine. Shampooing three dogs in turn, feeding them, and now at last my own brekkie is on the cards.