Halleluia! I can breathe again!

Allegra is now available over the counter!

If you are an allergy sufferer you probably know what that means, and if you aren't you don't care. I've tried all the prescription allergy pills and this was the only one that ever worked for me. And shortly after I discovered this, my insurer dropped it from their formulary for absolutely no reason except, presumably, the secret agreements between drug manufacturers and insurers. It wasn't more expensive and it worked for a lot of people when Zyrtec and Claritin didn't. Well, now it's out of the back room and I can make my own decision to use it. Of course, now I have to pay the whole cost myself.

It seems pricey until you realize that each tablet is good for 24 HOURS. At CVS a box of 45 tablets costs $30, which is only $.66/day. Better yet, CVS already has a generic knockoff available for $22 ($.48/day). And best of all, you can get the knockoff version IN A BOTTLE instead of having to deal with those awful blister packs!

But every silver cloud has a dark lining. CVS has now stopped carrying clemastine fumarate (i.e., Tavist), the only OTC anti-histamine that has consistently worked for me (until now, anyway). CVS was the last store I know of that still carried it. There is no medical reason that I know of why this product should be pulled off the shelves. I think people just stopped buying it because the company that makes it stopped advertising it.

Looking for travel tips - Scotland (with a little bit of London thrown in)

I have now booked airfare for a mother-daughter trip to Scotland in July. So it's official - we're going! Now I have the basic dates I'm trying to fill in the rest of the details. I'm looking for tips on:

* Car rental overseas (specifically UK). I'm particularly baffled by the constantly changing information regarding insurance, collision damage waivers, and credit cards. I have several credit cards to choose from: which should I use? Do I need to pay the exorbitant rental car insurance? Should I rent from someplace familiar like Hertz, or can someone recommend a reliable European car rental agency? How hard is it to drive a stick shift with the gearshift on the wrong side?

* Someplace affordable to stay in London for 2 days. We won't have much time there, so we'll need someplace centrally located. But I don't want to pay $200/night. It doesn't have to be fancy, just relatively safe. Has anyone ever used Priceline to find hotels? Does it work?

* Trains. We'll be taking the train from London to Scotland and back again. I see that Britain no longer has a national rail system, and there are a bewildering number of choices. Yikes! Where do you start?

* If you only had two days in London and wanted to be leisurely about it, what would you see? I'm leaning towards the Tower, the Eye, and the British Museum.

* How about Edinburgh?

* Have you been to Scotland? If so, what was the best part?