The Sneezles

See that little meal that dear old Hilda has got there: cheese, crackers, a sliced onion and a few slices of cured meat? That is my idea of heaven, and left to my own devices I would eat it for breakfast, dinner and tea if I could. In fact I just might because I am a grown up and I can do whatever the heck I want now can’t I, and heaven knows I cannot recommend arguing with me even if you disagree.
The thing is this I cannot shake off this cold and I am two steps away from lying down on the floor and smacking my head on it repeatedly. After a week of bronchial choking I have progressed into an itchy, sneezy, snotty, grumpy phase and I think my entire family will agree that I am no nicer for it and that I have in fact been mean. And stroppy. And irritable. And distant. And every phone call with me is an ordeal and every meeting a terrible cacophony of sorry for myself wailing and frustration that it is me and not you who is suffering and the world is outrageous and heck what is the point of being alive if copious amounts of vitamin C taken daily will not stave off the horror that is a change of season bout of lady flu.
One shouldn’t moan. But one of course does because when a person cannot breathe a person loses all perspective and dissatisfaction takes a hold and has a person wandering the aisles of Waterstones, red in the face and snivelling like a snivelly thing, frightening other book dwellers in search of answers and looking for all the world like a sweaty, panting, snotty, walking germ. The kind of germ, in fact, that other people make rapid efforts to move away from.
This always happens when I have got plans. When I am halfway through a scrub, have great plans for life here at BrocanteHome and a social life that would prefer me to participate instead of making excuses. My body shouts woah, renders me utterly silent with the kind of croaky, hoarse voice my Mum suspects is put on, and has me seeking my bed at the merest opportunity, chucking paper hankies out from under blankets and failing to wash my hair.
Gosh, I bet you feel like dousing yourself in anti-bacterial gel just reading this post don’t you??
But it hasn’t all been doom and gloom. Oh no. Today there has been a series of small victories. I won at the game of 2048 and promptly deleted the app so I never again have to torture myself to the same degree again. At 12.32 precisely I got a rush of energy and packed hundreds of magazines into archive boxes ready for the loft and freed up six glorious book shelves and did something of a giddy dance in delight! There has been a glorious meatloaf made and devoured. An hour spent reading a little more Virginia Woolf’s glorious, but challenging diaries and a mad idea for re-arranging the bedroom furniture I will put into action as soon as I can summon the strength.
And now I am exhausted. Ready for a little supper of Hilda’s cheese and crackers and yet another early night.
These things are sent to try us aren’t they?