May, already?! But my Diamond Year should be special and so far it’s been more work, a few sales and health still not 110%. That said, my health is a million times better than it was this time last year.

Photo A shows only a few of those awful vesicles (the ‘dalmations’) which covered all my back and rib cage.

Photo B is the wonderful improvement. No lumps or bumps and almost ready for baring again. Well, possibly.(Ed: not sure why the horrible picture is bigger than the nice one but if you click on the nice one it should show the difference.)

Another of the NandDs also gets hives but thinks Sudocrem is the answer without changing their diet. As it happens, I tried that – and gazillions of other remedies – and the only thing that has worked is adopting a low histamine diet.

But we live to learn and now ‘oxalates’ are in the front of my inner filing cabinet. Apparently, eating too many high oxalate foods (mostly in vegetables) can trigger off histamine-like reactions. On the plus side, because of the Food Diary and mostly adopting a rotation diet, it is easier to work out what the culprits were/are.

It doesn’t mean I can never again eat those foods, or never have a glass of wine or cup of coffee ever again. I just can’t right now and for some months, possibly. But it’s a price worth paying to not be plagued by those awful things.

All the more frightening then to get itchy skin and bumps on my left hand, right forearm and a couple on my tummy. I thought I had been so good. But it seems that there is another kind of food family – one high in oxalates and which crosses traditional food families.

What that effectively means is my rotation diet wasn’t working as I was overloading my oxalate levels (or something like that). Whatever the correct medical explanation, it made sense when I checked my food diary for oxalate levels and realised I had been eating – albeit every four days – foods from different food families, but all were high oxalate.

Apart from that blip, Wise El on Life is now available on Kindle with a print version out at the end of the month.

Instead of working on complete books for the rest of the Wise El series, I am working on individual cards to be sold through online retailers and directly. Then, when there are a minimum of 30, I can create another cartoon book.

I am also working on art that fits my spiritual purpose but is even more accessible than Wise El to pitch at design companies. Unfortunately, they are taking a little longer than hoped for.

Craft fairs don’t work for me so I have made a decision to not spend more time and money on them, and I’ve also deleted my accounts at Zazzle, Artflakes and Big Cartel. I think I may have found another one (not Redbubble, which also doesn’t appeal).

It’s too early to start pitching editors again because I need to get some of these big tasks done and dusted first. Yet I have felt a frisson of fear – enough to dig out my old CV and get alerts for part-time jobs.

With no pension to speak of, I simply cannot afford to ever stop working but, equally, my window of opportunity is not going to remain as is forever. Back to tempus fugit. And back to wanting that 110% health. If I don’t crack it with my art and books, who’s going to hire a decrepit 90 year old?