Summer is here. The time to relax and catch some rays in the park, to scoff down heavenly Magnums or cooling Fabs, to visit the amusement parks, to wear summer dresses with sunnies and to us Londoners it is a break from the usual miserable drizzle.

But to many people, summer is also known as the hay fever season-the season of enduring endless sneezing, eye-ball rubbing and noses that run and itch. It is the time of hardly effective daily medical regimes consisting of various pills, gross nasal sprays and stingy eye drops. It is most definatly hell-on-earth. Okay, a slight exaggeration but it’s true that for hay-fever sufferers, the normal summer fun activities mentioned above can become mission impossible.

A recent study has revealed that hay fever could be costing businesses £7.1bn each year. It found that out of the 25 per cent of the population who suffer symptoms, 80 per cent of them could not operate properly during hay fever season. As a hay fever sufferer myself, Ico mpletely believe this as till this day I still blame my hay fever for restricting me to a grade B in maths GCSE. If my nose wasn’t pouring the day of my exam, I’m sure I would’ve got a shiny grade A. The survey of 2,000 by the National Pollen and Aerobiology Research Unit also revealed that affected workers operated at an average of 63 per cent of normal productivity.

These days I wake up to start my day with an awful and uncomfortable itching in my nose followed by continuous sneezing and because of this I have to drag my lazy self out of bed in search for my rescuer-a box of tissues. Hay-fever can really suck the fun and life out of my summer but it’s not too bad as long as I make Piriton allergy tablets my new best friend and make an effort to take one tablet every 4 hours. On the other hand, if one forgets to take their tablet, you can kiss having a good day goodbye and say hello to waking up in the wrong side of the bed. Damn you hay fever, damn you.