Honey and lemon

AT the time of writing it is half-term, and I’d love to say we’re having a fun-packed week with various adventures, but this is not the case, as I am ill in bed with something resembling mild flu.

I now carry a toilet roll wherever I go, as required by my runny nose. (We don’t stock boxes of tissues, do people still do that?)

“I can’t remember the last time my nose was this runny,” I said on the phone to my mum.

“Are you having honey and lemon?” She asks, right on cue, referring to honey, in hot water, with the juice of an entire lemon.

“Yes, sort of,” I reply, wondering if honey on toast, then lemon on pancakes counts.

One might say I’m fortunate that, despite being poorly, my appetite remains as strong as ever.

I haven’t had the best luck with mild illness over the last couple of months. It seems I catch some virus, spend a few days feeling rotten, get better, then a few weeks later I’m down with another something.

“I’M ILL AGAIN!?” I say to Joel.

“Ange, I hate to say it, but you do say this every week.”

He exaggerates, but I get his point.

Work-wise things are manageable, I’ve been working from bed, it’s the pre-made social plans I feel awful about. No one likes cancelling on a friend, not least a friend you already cancelled on just last month, when you were poorly then too.

She is understanding and agrees to a Zoom, which we both know is a bit naff, but better than nothing.

Then there was the Valentine’s cinema date I’d arranged with another close friend.

We were going to see All Of Us Strangers and

I’d bought my popcorn in advance from Tesco, in a sincere attempt to save money. (It’s never as good, the fresh warm stuff is a rip-off, but some might say worth it.)

I’m meant to be at a pub-quiz tomorrow night, (not something I’ve done in a while) but going by my night-time lie-down-and-shiver-under-a-duvet routine, this won’t be happening either.

Last night, struggling to stay awake at bedtime, I requested that maybe we just do the one story, which we all know was a pointless appeal. After The Snail and the Whale, Leo returned with Tyrannosaurus Drip, another tale I am somewhat fond of.

As a weird sort of compromise, with any oomph left in my voice used up on the previous book, I told myself it’d be fine to read only the most necessary lines.

This worked for the first few pages, but then the second part of the story gets rather good, my energy picked up and I committed to reading properly, feeling bad about those first few pages.

Surely I can’t be the only parent to have skipped the odd line in a story, I mean The Cat in the Hat is 61 pages long. In the end though, skipping lines was a futile endeavour, he still took over half an hour to drift off.

Thankfully Maia is at her dad’s this week, so won’t suffer the house-bounding consequences of my disappointing immune system.

The “What are we doing today?” that rings in the ears of parents across the country during halfterm, will be her dad’s quandary.

She’s back on Saturday and keen for Coral

Reef, which means a speedy recovery is imminent. Though I can’t currently imagine anything worse.

Today however, I get to stay warm in my bed, surrounded by toilet roll and various scarves. It’s the freelancing dream.