Gasp wheeze cough!

Ok, so there is always an excuse. For not updating a blog, that is. But this time it is a genuine one, with due apologies and many sad noises attached.
About two weeks ago, I was wondering why life was not as it should be. Not philosophically speaking, but existentially so. Everything seemed to be falling apart. Work projects were coming to an end – or so I thought, more fool me – my mobile phone, the beloved instrument that I cherished for almost five years, was starting to hiccup miserably and my legs hurt more than my gym trainer’s toughness warranted. I was tired, dragging and feeling unwontedly tearful, with nothing to justify it, not PMS, not any fight with Father, no weepy movie on the telly…nothing. And then it all hit the fan.

My mobile phone died. I had bought it almost five years ago after falling instantly in love with it at the shop. It was a design statement, it was small, it was fabulously comfortable to hold and functionally more efficient than my own sense of organization. And it had been with me, doing its job magnificently, through one of the worst periods in my personal history. But it was old, not made any more and un-fixable. It is not in the great mobile phone department in the sky, far away from me, never to be used again. Of course, at that stage, the eternal debate was reopened: Should I get a new one, should I use an old one that did its job but satisfied none of my aesthetic requirements, or should I just do without, in a sort of anti-established-norm-of-society kind of way? The jury is still out on that one, though I have appropriated my father’s handset for the time being. Of course, my family being the sort it is, a new phone has been scoped out and is being argued over. Whether I do buy it or not depends entirely on what life brings me over the next few days.

But worse than that, I decided that I would have a minor breakdown in my system on the same day as my mobile phone went to the shop. It started out with aching legs, which could not be explained by a gym routine or a disturbed night of sleeplessness. The ache spread to the head and the back and generally diffused all over. Classic symptoms of influenza. The fever came, stayed for a while and then settled nicely in my chest to give me a bad case of bronchitis. I coughed, I gasped, I wheezed, I hacked and raled and generally was more miserable than anyone deserves to be. I stayed at home for a whole week, not even going out into the lobby outside my front door. And my trainer called at regular intervals to find out what was going on, my mobile phone never rang to bother me – of course, it was as sick as I was! – and I slept a great deal, tottered about having small arguments with Father and Small Cat and felt like I had been run through the super-spin cycle of a washing machine and hung out, limp and exhausted, to drip dry.

Unfortunate as it may sound, things have been improving. I am finally getting back to routine, with gentle gym regimens and the will to do more gaining ground every day. So I still am not especially interested in food, and neither do I want to do very much, but at least I do not feel limp and washed out, however I may look to my own eyes as I peep furtively into the mirror. When I get back my usual level of need to devour dark chocolate fudge or feel like whirling about doing sixty-four things at the same time, I will be completely over this bug. But, in all this misery, not once did I say “Oink!”, I tell my concerned friends cheerfully!