As is often the way, the first part of my December downtime has been spent curled up under a duvet desperately waiting for the hour I can have my next Lemsip. This year, I tried a new tactic of supplementing the real medicine with that other thing that’s supposedly even better: laughter. There were a few new stand up shows available on iTunes, those that have presumably also been released on DVD in time for Christmas, and I was very entranced by Dylan Moran’s live show Off the Hook.

So far, 2011 hasn’t shaped up all that well. I started the year feeling a bit peaky, and I blogged it, thinking to myself - well, it’s been a while since I had a proper cold, perhaps I should mark the occasion so I can look back in three years when I next get one and remember it better. Silly girl. I even made the mistake of saying: I don’t mind being ill so much, because I always think no matter how bad I feel, it can never be as bad as those two weeks post-Silverstone.

I haven’t had a proper cold for a long time, well over a year. The occasional sore throat descends upon me, and I always prepare for the worst, but then it just goes away. I don’t know whether that means I have a better constitution than I used to, or if I am just lucky enough to have already had all the germs that have been circulating recently, and therefore gained some useful antibodies.

I am coming out the other side of a very brief cold, which I am grateful for because I know it could have been a lot worse. However, there are so many things that annoy me about having a cold, and these are things that a doctor wouldn’t be able to help with. Sore nose. Forget the sniffing, coughing, and aching. The sore nose, developed from constant application of tissues, is the real killer.

The thing I hate most about being ill is the lack of productiveness (is that even a word?). For the past two days all I have done is sit under the duvet, work through boxes of tissues, drink buckets full of Lemsip and my bodyweight in orange juice. All that Vitamin C - yuck.

… Believe me, there is nothing, and I mean nothing, more boring than people wanting to describe their dreams to you … Trust me on this, it kills relationships stone dead. The day one partner wakes up and starts saying ‘It was amazing, there was this rabbit in a bowler hat cooking an omelette…’ that’s when love dies. Scaramouche, We Will Rock You But, I’m going to anyway. Just in time for the weekend, I woke up on Friday morning with an intense sore throat.

The light above my head started flickering at work yesterday. It started with just the level of the light dipping. Then there was a rhythmic flickering, then it started flashing on and off. The guy in charge of repairs and other such things was in the middle of something important, and would be a while, so we were left working with a disco light atmosphere. I thought it would give me a headache but it actually made me feel really sick.

I’m not very well today, a lot of coughing and stuff, it’s not very nice. Wrap up warm in front of the telly, that’s the advice I’ve been given, so that’s what I’m doing. At work, there’s a contact we have at a branch, and she is always, always rude to me. She’s sometimes rude to my boss but never rude to my colleague who happens to be a man. I can’t work it out.

…wisdom teeth hurt! Mine take it in turns to grow a tiny bit at a time, sporadically over three years (so far). It’s probably the most painful way they could have chosen to do it and I just know they’re not done yet. I’ve come home at lunch to grab some paracetamol to last me through the day. I sure as hell don’t remember teeth hurting so much when I was a kid!

I wanted to go in today, but it was kinda insisted that I stay in bed. Of course, I got itchy feet and was up a few minutes after the house was empty. But I guess it was right, it’s probably best that I’m at home today, I’m still a bit poorly and I’ll definitely go back tomorrow, and there’ll probably be lots of work to do, always a plus.