It has been said that love and a cold cannot be hid, and it's no good denying it, I have another cold. Not flu, just a cold. Which is to say, a nose that drips like a tap with occasional bouts of gushing and sneezing fits, a slightly swollen neck, sore muscles and a general feeling of befuddlement. I can eat, indeed cake seems one of life's few consolations. I don't have a temperature. Just a cold and a foul temper surrounded by a miasma of tissues. I was afraid earlier I was running out of tissues, but to my great relief found a double pack of Waitrose ultra soft ones in the study, and blessed the Systems Administrator for stocking up during my last cold.
I realised all was not entirely well driving back from the Plant Heritage lecture on Saturday, as I began to feel very slightly clammy with the merest hint of a sore throat, and caught a whiff of that unwholesome sweaty smell that people with colds have. I trundled through Sunday muttering darkly that I was going down with something again, and by Monday had a headache.
I steeled myself to go to a meal in a local Italian with friends on Monday night, since we'd already had one drop-out and to leave the last two in the lurch seemed too mean. Besides, I was the organiser. I washed my hands before going, tried not to touch anything except my own glass and cutlery (though I failed with the shared bottle of water) and fended off one of my companions when she tried to give me a goodnight hug. On Tuesday I woke feeling bunged up, but decided after breakfast to see how it went in the garden, and found I was OK cutting brambles once I was up and moving. I'd been planning to go to a natural history lecture in the evening, though, and gave that a miss. Lucky I had intimations the cold would get worse before it got better and didn't call a friend to ask her to come along as originally planned.
By yesterday the cold was in full, disgusting flow, and gardening or doing anything useful was out of the question, and it's the same today. It is intensely frustrating, as buds are swelling and bulbs pushing through the earth, and every day the time left to do all sorts of necessary garden tasks diminishes. Meanwhile the garden is littered with the debris of half completed projects, equipment not put away, Strulch still sitting in the drive, piles of plant debris. It detracts from the overall appearance at a time of year when I've gone to quite a lot of trouble to have some planting interest, what with the dwarf iris and snowdrops, the daphnes, winter flowering viburnum and Japanese paper bush, and the coloured stems (which will need pruning very soon).
I am baffled. It can't be a general immune deficiency, since everything else is working fine. I am forever picking up small scratches and puncture wounds from gardening and they almost always heal quickly, no septic cuts or cellulitis. Apart from needing treatment for a couple of scratched eyes I've only been once to the doctor to get antibiotics for a thorn in my knuckles that I didn't like the look of, and that must have been eight or ten years ago. I have suffered from one urinary tract infection in my entire adult life, while the last time my stomach was badly upset was pre 1996 (from food poisoning after lunch at the Savoy). I can't think when I last ran a temperature. It only seems to be when it comes to the common cold that my immune system throws up its hands and says Sorry Gov, nothing to do with me.
At least I was OK last week, when I was due to do my pond lecture. It would have been a shame to miss that when I'd put a lot of work into preparing it, besides leaving the garden club in the lurch. And it would have been a pity to miss my hair appointment in my hairdresser's first week of trading, since she's bound to be anxious about whether her venture will work out. And I was OK for the trip to London. Again, it would have been a nuisance trying to reschedule that, since the exhibitions end fairly soon and the person I went with works full time and can't take days off just like that. And this week I didn't have so much planned, though I'll miss tonight's monthly beekeeping meeting as well as Tuesday's stag beetles. But I was aiming to get all sorts of things done at home.
Non-fatal, infectious, ubiquitous, the common cold has got it sussed. And it is a damn nuisance.
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