Sometimes things just don't go how you plan them. The Systems Administrator felt a bit grotty yesterday, but put the funny taste of the leftover chicken pie at lunchtime down to it having been left over too long, and tottered around with the vacuum cleaner then spent a quiet afternoon watching the Olympics alternating with the cricket. Having taken a shower before our friends arrived the SA professed to be feeling much better, but by the time I came to dish supper the truth could not be hid. The SA had some sort of gastric flu, almost certainly nothing to do with two day old chicken pie, and after pushing a very small helping of main course around a plate had to retreat to bed.
Our friends were very nice about it, emitting exactly the right amount of genuine sympathy and concern while not turning it into a crisis. We ate the cheese course with the attention that Waitrose's nice piece of exactly ripe brie deserved, chatted for a few more minutes, and they gracefully departed early, to leave me to check on the sufferer. The SA had a temperature and was sweating like a pig, but was compos mentis and didn't look about to die. I enquired about headache, intolerance to bright light, stiff neck or anything else I could think of that might suggest it was worse than a nasty dose of flu, decided it wasn't, made sure the SA had enough water, left the patient to try and sleep, and went to clear up.
It is horrid to be ill and my main sympathies were with the Systems Administrator. But it is only human, after you have spent the day cleaning and shopping and cooking, and been looking forward to a very pleasant evening with people that you like a lot, and that your partner likes equally so you don't have to worry that they might not be having such a jolly time as you are, to feel rather flat when by nine in the evening you are loading the plates into the dishwasher and scrubbing saucepans, all on your tod. Stuff happens, though, which is one reason why I rather distrust pinning too many hopes on holidays of a lifetime, perfect days and other pre-planned high spots. Aiming to make the everyday enjoyable is a more reliable strategy. Some things will turn out to be unexpectedly brilliant, and the inevitable cock-ups won't come as such crushing disappointments.
At least having guests prompted us to do some cleaning, which needed doing anyway, and I got to go shopping in Waitrose. I had a Damascene moment, in which I fundamentally downgraded my view of Tesco's prospects, when I decided I was going to Waitrose because Tesco's cheese offering had become so poor. In the past I have listened tolerantly as various relatives and friends told me how awful the Hythe branch of Tesco in Colchester was, how the range was so limited, and the other customers so obese and chavvy. It was easy to get to, I knew the layout, and I didn't think it was that bad, but then I realised yesterday I didn't trust it to produce the makings of a decent cheeseboard for guests who like cheese, which meant I was doing my entire shop somewhere else. And Waitrose was so nice. It was quieter. It smelt nicer. The ends of the aisles weren't reduced to pinch points by standing piles of special offer bargain goods in them. The store was decorated with faux bunting, instead of so many red and blue money off, special value banners that it looked like a grocer's Nuremberg rally. I didn't have to find a pound coin to release my trolley from the rack, and I got to feel benevolent at the end deciding which of the three deserving local charities to support with my green token.
I have a few shares in Tesco. I bought them when I still worked in the City, and it has done well enough since then that I should think they're worth more than I paid for them, though it's been pretty poor recently. It's produced a rising dividend stream over the years, and I'm sure the payout is secure for now. But I regard myself as a reasonable proxy for the mainstream grocery shopper, and yesterday I gave up on a fifteen year habit. I went in there this morning, because I wanted something for my lunchbox, and the SA wanted easy to eat (and hold down) invalid food, and requested white rolls and tomato packet soup. (My additional suggestion of mini-cheddars, on the grounds that they are relatively easy to keep down when you're seasick, was accepted). As I put my pound coin in a trolley to release it another customer was waiting fretfully for help, since her trolley wouldn't give her pound back. An alarm was sounding in the store, but nobody seemed to be alarmed, or to be calling for an evacuation. It stopped after a while, then sounded intermittently. It turned out the store was in mid refit, so my feeling of disillusion was compounded by the fact that almost everything had moved, and the new signage wasn't complete. I eventually found the packet soups in what used to be the detergents aisle, still labelled Pre Wash. There was a fair amount of rubbish on the floor, bits of paper and packaging. And yes, I'm afraid a lot of the other customers were obese. I don't know what rating the shares are on, but I'm pretty sure they're not a buy yet.
By this morning the SA still felt clammy to the touch, but was no longer running a temperature, or at least I don't think so. (We must have a thermometer somewhere, but I have never been very good at reading them, so my usual method is to feel the patient's head to check how hot it is, see how ill they look, and start worrying if they feel very hot, look very ill, or have stopped making sense). Given the poor old SA's flu it's lucky I didn't have to go in to work today. I really wouldn't have liked to disappear at seven thirty this morning, not knowing if things had deteriorated in the night, and leaving the SA alone, in case it got worse, and without provisions.
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