DIAGNOSIS

I've caught an unknown virus: I
would like to drop right here and die,
collapse upon the kitchen floor;
maybe I will but not before
I've ironed shirts and found the cash
for dinner money, riddled ash
from our wood stove, fed kids, dogs, fish -
I sense a mega-sneeze; "Attish ..."
the phone ... it's double gazing.."OO"
I started so I finish. Two
bonus explosions, she rings off;
I shiver, ooze, drip, shake and cough,
my nose is sore, my legs aren't there,
I've this strange feeling in my hair
as if it's turned to drowned sheep's wool
or strangling tentacles. I pull
what's left of me together and
prepare a tray with clammy hands;
broth, beer, asparagus souffle
for him who's been (since last Tuesday,
nearly a week) confined to bed.
"Poor chap," old Doctor Watson said.
"He needs light food and lots to drink,
plenty of rest and care. I think
he's down with one dread ilness you
will never suffer from - Male Flu.",

FACT TO FICTION TO FACT

I have a lovely cast-iron stove of French origin, delicately wrought and capable of giving off a marvellously cheering warmth. However, yesterday I worried that, in her temperamental fashion, she might also be exuding carbon monoxide and so went to my local store for an alarm/indicator. The owner told me that he had sold hundreds recently and had none left because of an episode in Coronation Street where there was an incident involving this deadly gas. Here is a prime example of fact influencing fiction which then influences fact in the form of supplies in shops. Yet, five ticks for the script-writers and five also for the elegance of my Gallic friend.

Plastic Bag Faff

Otherwise known as PBF, this is the term given to that process by which you peel off a plastic bag at the fruit counter in the supermarket and spend the rest of the day trying to get it to open. Firstly you prod at the sealed end before transferring your attentions. Next you fiddle pointlessly with the correct part until someone suggests you lick your index finger and thumb. Now you have a damp bag to contend with. When you finally succeed, night has fallen and you have forgotten what you wanted to buy to put in it. Then you remember and insert the apples, realising with a sudden pang that you have ripped the bottom with your struggles and they all drop out, bruise themselves and roll across the floor.
PS. I use the pronoun "you" but I never see anyone else suffering in this way. I am alone in my pain. Where are you all, you PBF victims?

VERY BRITISH ADVICE

Now that a thaw is forecast the powers-that-be have some instructions for us which will help prevent flooding: build a snowman! It seems that these constructions will melt more slowly and ward off distaster.  I calculate that we each need to make thirty to help the situation and who but the Brits would dream up such an idea? Here is one toddler doing his bit!

My one New Year's Resolution

Drink better quality wine.

P.S. So far I have kept it!

Post Christmas

As distinct from Christmas post! It is a strange time when one festivity is over and the New Year not yet upon us.  What can one do but shop and eat chocolate? I am always glad when normal life and routines resume but some kind of winter celebration does seem necessary. I love trimming the tree and, in this photo, a friend's dog spotted a bird on a branch outside the window, gave in to canine curiosity and emerged tastefully decorated with tinsel.

CONKERS

One of the most popular crazes of my childhood was conkers. Gathering them, all brown and shiny in their shells, was the start of the fun and then they had to be strung, taken to school, and thwacked at someone else's. If your conker smashed another it became a one-er but if it cracked a conker that had beaten three others it was a triumphant four-er. Some cheats soaked theirs in vinegar or roasted them in an oven. Those traitors met a stern fate behind the bicycle sheds in the lunch hour and never did it again!


(With thanks to MadHatter for the photograph)