I like to think that for every cause or every action, there’s an effect or change somewhere else.  This follows you throughout your life and every decision or action you take will have a positive or negative impact.

This can also be applied to kids and learning new tricks or eating new food.

You can’t just pretend that nothing will happen if you force a child to for example eat something against their will.

I rarely get sick, but when I do I’m down for 1-2 days – completely immobile on a death bed.  I’m a man so I suffer from man-flu syndrome like any man around the planet.  My annual illness is always a sore throat followed by a fever.  Because I’m a tough Viking, I normally refuse to go to the doctor much to the annoyance of my wife.

So, I may suffer from chronic annual throat infection and consume large amounts of Lemsip, tea* and fever/pain-reducing tablets.  Probably not the healthiest of cures, but it tends to work fairly well.

* for some unknown reason, I strongly believe that drinking tea cures me faster than if I would drink coffee.  It has a healing effect on my swollen throat.  Funnily enough, I only drink tea when I’m sick.

Many of my friends, as well as my lovely wife, always tell me to use honey in my tea or eat a tablespoon of honey regularly throughout the day – preferably Manuka honey, which according to ancient scriptures has healing powers.

Now, here’s my dilemma.  I absolutely hate the smell, feel and taste of honey.  I’m sure it has healing powers and I use it often for my kids when they have a cough.

This hatred has been bothering me for some years now mainly because of all the questions I get and raised eyebrows.  So, I had to get to the bottom of the effect honey has had on me.  The cause must have been triggered somewhere in the past.

In fact, it didn’t take me long to narrow down the cause of my dislike for honey.  It was because of the nuns in my kindergarten.  Yes, these “friendly” and “loving” people triggered something inside my brain, so now I hate honey … and, here’s what they did.

Just some background information, I’m Lutheran and I was according to my parents a VERY naughty kid.  So naughty that they quickly gave me the nickname Denis the Menance.  One day, during my toddler years, my parents decided that I had to go to kindergarten, despite it being one year too early. They couldn’t handle the raw power of naughtiness.

The only kindergarten that had free spaces, and I wonder why was the local Catholic kindergarten.  And yes, it was managed by nuns.  We had to pay penance every day, several times, even if we had done nothing wrong.  It was like a prison. I was constantly plotting the Great Escape.  But, that’s another post.

EVERY morning, during morning prayer and singing, all the kids were lined up in their classes according to their age, which meant I was always first.  Most times I don’t mind being first, but not when it comes to this.

The head nun brought out a ginormous clay jar full of honey, homemade I’m sure and dipped her giant wooden spoon into the abyss.  The spoon was forcefully (not really, but it adds effect) placed in each kid’s mouth one at a time. We were all getting a large spoon full of honey.  If you attempted to resist, which I did on a few occasions, then the ‘friendly’ sidekick nun pried open my mouth and shoved the spoon into my mouth – holding it there until the honey had vanished into my system.

By the way, all 120 kids licked the same spoon in turn, so if one had any virus, then we all would eventually get it too.  Not sure if that’s a Catholic thing, to share misfortune, but that how it happened in my hood.

… I bet you they didn’t even wash the spoon … there was no spoon!!

So, there you have it.  The reason I hate honey so much is because of the nuns.