It burns!

After the strange episode of waking up in the middle of the night with what may or may not have been a foot cramp, the other day I amanged to hurt myself in another bizarre manner.

Fire Face (Photo credit: Chris Yarzab)

I was going to make toad in the hole for tea on Thursday, but after my train was cancelled and its replacement turned up an hour later I didn’t much feel like going through the effort any more, so I decided to make a quick sausage hotpot type thing. We had some chillis in the fridge that needed using up, so I grabbed one of them to chick in the pan. After chopping it, I must have touched my face or something becasue about a minute later the piece of skin between my top lip and my nose started to burn. Seriously, it felt like the area was on fire!

Running cold water over the burning spot helped, but only while the water was actually running. As soo as it stopped, the fire returned worse than ever. My eyes were actually watering with the pain of it by this point! I then tried rolling a cold bottle of beer from the fridge over it with the same result. Finally, I remembered what I’ve always been told about spicy foods – if it burns your tongue, don’t drink water – that will only make the burning worse. Milk or yoghurt is the way forward (why do you think Indians drink Lassi?). I poured some milk into a cup and drank, taking care to purposely give myself a milk moustache. The relief wasn’t instant, but within 30 seconds the firey sensation had faded to a mere dull ache. A couple of minutes later it had gone completely.

And that’s the last time I forget to wash my hands after handling chilli!