Woman thrilled time has come to pretend those tears are hay fever

A Dorset woman was excited today after learning that hay fever symptoms are once again rife amongst her peers.

Lilly Harris, 26, had been looking forward to the annual occasion, having spent most of the year praying for the ideal environmental scenario in which to disguise her desperation.

“In winter I kept trying to drop the pollen count into casual conversation, but people just weren’t interested,” Lilly explained. “Now if you mention it, they can’t get enough. They can’t wait to tell you all about their snotty noses and how they haven’t been sleeping very well, it’s incredible!”

“I told her I’d woken up with watery eyes, and she just started weeping,” explained Maya Jones, 28, a friend of Lilly’s. “Before I could ask her why, she just said ‘same.’”

Much like one of her great influences, hayfever advocate and style icon, Tracey Beaker, Lilly now feels able to let her emotions flow freely under the pretence of pollen-related symptoms.

“I used to keep it all bottled up at home, for fear of public humiliation. Now, I’m an open book!”

“No one even bats an eye when I shed a tear at the office,” Lilly enthused. “But that also might be because they’re all dosed out of their minds on antihistamines.”