Jack has been ‘hors de combat’ the last week and a half but may be back in the saddle now – – there’s a joke in there – –

It’s been a rough time with stomach issues I thought were simply constipation and trapped gas (TMI?). So my first port of call involved childhood memories – the dreaded castor oil!

When I was just a wee boy my mother was encouraged by the British government to feed me castor oil to make me ‘regular’, so I came to hate it no matter how she tried to disguise it! One of her gambits was to try to mix it with orange juice but of course they didn’t, and to this day a whiff of orange zest can make me nauseous!

But ten or so years later I became deeply involved in building and flying model planes and most of them were powered with engines – diesel engines! The ‘must have’ was the Oliver Tiger, and I eventually could afford one! What does this have to do with castor oil I hear you ask? Have you guessed yet??

Small single cylinder diesel engines run on a mixture of air and fuel under compression – the fuel is a mixture of ether (yes –actual ether) and castor oil which came in cans from a company called – wait for it – Castrol! They don’t need a spark or glo plug – no battery needed.

So – as usual a mixture of good and not so good memories.

But it seems that the stomach issues are probably gastric flu – so gastro enteritis which I must have picked up somewhere!