colds

I spent today sitting by the Aga, poring over seed catalogues.  About half way through Sunday's concert a nasty feeling of clamminess and intimations of aching limbs and a sore throat came over me, the warning signs of an impending cold.  The Systems Administrator has already got one, and has been stomping around with blocked sinuses for the past week.  After last winter the thought of catching a cold, followed by another cold and then another, was almost too much to bear.

The SA said that there was no reason why even if I had one cold I should have three or four.  I thought it all boded ill, and tottered off early to bed on Sunday evening, overcome by intense, eye-aching sleepiness.  By the morning I ached all over, and apologetically rang to defer our planned visit to a relative in Aldeburgh who has just had his second hip replaced.  I didn't feel fit to drive on the A12, and it seemed wrong to expose my cousin to our germs while he was recovering from orthopaedic surgery.

By now I feel better than I have since Sunday evening.  Perhaps that means it was never going to develop into a full-blown cold, or maybe being able to take it easy and keep warm for two days was enough to halt its progression.  If I'd had to struggle into an office on the train or spend two days standing in the cold at the plant centre things might have been different.  There's no way of telling.  I am completely paranoid when it comes to colds.  They may be described as 'only a cold' to differentiate them from flu, and it is true that people die of flu whereas I am not going to die of a cold.  But they are vile, and once you get into a run of them you can lose weeks of your life to totally non-productive snivelling.

I thought that looking at the seed catalogues while I was feeling unwell might help curb my natural over-enthusiasm, and avoid ending up choosing approximately three times as many packets as I had the space or time to sow or prick out.  It worked, up to a point.  Some editing is still going to be needed before I place any orders.

Meanwhile hope springs eternal.  The hens laid another egg today.