Cold Diary (1)

Oh hello, is that you out there, world?  Still there then?  Anything important happened while I’ve been asleep?

I don’t get colds.  I mean, I do understand them, but I don’t catch them.  This started more than twenty years ago, when I had a flu jab.  It was followed by something horrible which I’d have called ‘flu’ if I hadn’t been told, twenty years earlier, by my mother that “if you can walk, it’s not flu.”  Since then, nothing, until now. 

Fair enough, I’ve been able to walk for the last five days, so it’s not flu.  I can even do stairs, and this morning, optimistically imagining that it was tailing off, drying out, losing interest –  surely even viruses must get bored eventually – I drove up to the supermarket, mainly to haul in a bootload of tissues and catering packs of Ibuprofen, Covonia and Strepsils, these being the least ineffectual drugs I’ve discovered so far.  (I’d go for codeine if I could, but they don’t seem to do that off the shelf at Waitrose.)

One thing I’ve found is that I feel best in the few hours after I wake up, so I’ve been sleeping as much as possible.  I’m aware, though, that this isn’t a habit to get into.  Although it can be very nice, and even interesting, sleep is not, as things stand, our natural state as humans.  Oh, I’ve been sitting here too long, because I find myself arguing with that, thinking about babies and old people; and wanting to ask cats and dogs and lions for their opinions.

I’d better stop now.  I must be feeling better, because it’s nearly eleven o’clock.  Friday night, I was in bed by nine-thirty and slept twelve hours.  I expect I’ll be up by eight tomorrow.   There’s more.