PLAGUED

I am surprised to find that I am not myself: this sodden soul is blowing herself to bits, has driven her nostrils red and crusty, and now owns a deep, sexy voice…except when she’s coughing – though is not yet fit to bust. Number4 grandson was hardly in the house six hours before my sneezing fits began – he’d been coughing up his lungs and deeply sniffing a million snotters…I thought about telling him that everything he dragged up there would be sliding down the back of his throat some time soon, but I settled for telling him to blow his brains out. Why don’t boys like blowing their noses? Number2 son has a little line on his nose from that palm-to-nose sniff in his childhood.

It might be going on for twenty years since I had a cold – does this mean I’m getting old, really decrepit and will be sinking into the bog sooner rather than later? I want to be 108! Of course I’m still working, and only the loss of voice can change that unless I learn to tap intelligently on the phone and, that clients could understand what I was saying. Wednesday is my day off, and I have a cinema card, and was planning to go this week but coughing through films is considered reason enough for murder; I’ll stay in, out of the rotten rain, and cook stovies, followed by custard and bargain/reduced raspberries. All hail winter.