Today

The Laryngitis got the better of me today. Yesterday I soldiered on. Went into work, emailed staff to say that phoning was off and got on with a busy day. Rather croaky and some people thought that to pretend to use sign language was funny. "No, I'm not deaf - I just can't actually speak." Funny thing; when your voice's all funny you can't control your intonation or expressiveness. I realise that I sounded more than usually aggresive because it was such an effort to say anything at all, and my laugh came out as a frightful high-pitched squeak.

Still I spent some extra time in bed this morning, after a night spent coughing. (There's only so much a Meggezone can do.) Eventually the sunshine and sounds of the outside world beckoned and I got up at about 11.00.

After my bath I mooched for a bit, then spent time sorting out the receipts for Paul's business, which have been piling up in a box labelled "receipts" which is great, but you are expected to sort then eventually.

I got loads of washing sorted, cooked a nice lunch and went out for a walk in the later afternoon sunshine. So quite a useful day, despite the laryngitis

In My Day

As I think I've said before, as a child, I was hardly ever ill, which meant that I never got to stay off school. How I envied those who did and planned all sorts of things to do if ever I was off sick. Eventually the time came - I had a rather nasty bug that involved a high temperature and a lot of vomiting. What I hadn't reckoned on was, that if you're too ill to go school, you probably feel like shit. So you might have many ideas about exciting ways to spend your day, but what really happens is that you lie in bed saying "I don't feel very well", are sick a lot and have those horrible nightmare/visions that come with a fever.

I remember being given a book which described a fever driven vision of a sick child all based around a very rich life based on the counterpane on the bed of said child. I wonder what it was called....

My Mother didn't especially reward illness; she doled out medicine, mopped up vomit without comment and kept out of the way. I tend to the same method of mothering myself - the girls had to be practically dead before I'd let them off school.

So, none of this whimpishness, Mrs Barrett! You've a business to run!