still afloat

swimming up from the depths, it was actually a rather pleasant, low-key(aren't they always)Christmas.I was at home with the male offspring, who decided to be civilised and sit down to a pleasant lunch of roast chicken with an excellent homemade chestnut stuffing, which I could just taste.I still have very reduced taste and smell senses and I am STILL coughing and sneezing, which is hard to believe. It is now 2 or 3 weeks (I have lost count and lost interest in counting)that I have been victimised by this bug/bugs. I now intend to ignore it.
No presents,no tree,no decs - well,one solitary string of snowflake lights around the window scarcely counts.
I went to a friend's house on Boxing Day, all right,St Stephen's Day, since we are in Ireland,but we are both Brits...and ate duck that I couldn't taste...
more later, I am being harassed by offspring....

sick and sicker

Three weeks of utter crap, and now it's Christmas. First I worked on my theory essay,then I stopped and started revising for my Mod Arch exam. Halfway through that week, I started a cold, but had no option but to soldier on. I was slightly better by the time I had to turn up, Saturday, to the exam barn, which fortunately was nice and warm.
I took the exam; not brilliant but done and done. Quick trip to the library to trade in books and regroup to essay mode. Sunday: decided to have a rest day. Not feeling great. Monday: had to force myself to work and feel worse. Coughing all night. Tuesday: unable to get out of bed. Call doctor, appointment in 6 hours. Kind friend gets me to surgery, doc not concerned, gives antibiotics, but no painkillers. I can hardly move. I am on my feet 18 hours later, back at the computer, with a head full of mush. Books I need are at the Library, 15 miles away. It is very cold; I do without. Eventually, I make the word limit with 18 hours to spare, go in to Library, speed-read, do corrections, mess with footnotes for 4 hours and deliver the essay with 45 minutes to spare.
Feel wrecked. Go shopping for food and see other people who have spent the whole week doing nothing but shop,- for presents, food, decorations, booze whatever, while I have been cooped up, working and being sick,exam-ing and being even sicker.
Now I am free to enjoy myself like everyone else and I'm too tired to enjoy the feeling.
At least I've had a good moan here. No one else has any sympathy at all.

here we go again

More exam woe. We are not 'supposed' to have them, since we are not modularised, but yes,one has crept in and many friends have up to 4. So of course I am ill. AGAIN. I have fought this cold (?) for a week, during which time I have been battered by the winds and rain of the region (all of them aimed at me, I swear), and it has of course won. Now, I should be feeling my very worst by Saturday when I have to go to some unknown cattle barn in S. Dublin and sit an exam. When I have dome that,I have to spend the next 6 days working on an 'exam essay', due in on 22 December.
After that I am free to get Christmas together. Just as well I am not one of those people who 'believes' in a big fancy 'do', let alone any other aspect of Christmas. It's enough to curdle the milk of human kindness, which I keep - where exactly? In my breast or in my veins? I can't remember, I feel so addled.
This does not bode well for the Saturday exam,when I need to remember things in a clear concise way. It is howling gale and teeming rain outside and I have to fight my way to the library - no,not the college library, where it is standing room only, just my local one to see if they can help me. The specialised Library for my subject would be the best, but I don't know if I can face the 90 mins bus-and-walk there, to find it also SRO, not on a day like today at any rate. Long cross-campus walks are best done on fresh summer days and crisp autumn ones and not too many of those recently.
Gotta go and achieve something, even though my head feels like cotton wool, if cotton wool could HURT.

genuinely puzzled

Just what is the point of footless tights? I really want to know; who buys these things? - given the option, that is,which I wasn't - in Penny's yesterday.
If I wanted grey tights,I had to have them footless. And , if not a dancer, WHO wants them?
Since I only get to Penney's two or three times a year, for 10 minutes, - I bought them. But not without feeling really aggrieved.

genuinely puzzled

Just what is the point of footless tights? I really want to know; who buys these things? - given the option, that is,which I wasn't - in Penny's yesterday.
If I wanted grey tights,I had to have them footless. And , if not a dancer, WHO wants them?
Since I only get to Penney's two or three times a year, for 10 minutes, - I bought them. But not without feeling really aggrieved.