No need for alarm

There’s something I deliberately didn’t mention in my blog post yesterday. My weekend.

I blathered about watching a movie because I was waiting for the results of a COVID test and didn’t want to alarm anyone.

I was also a bit embarrassed to admit that I was sick AGAIN, this time with a bad cold, just to keep things diverse and interesting.

I was very annoyed to be sick again, because the weather has been gorgeous in my neck of the woods. Before I completed corpsed, I had a coffee with DD and gazed at THIS view:

So beautiful.

As I sat sipping my coffee, feeling increasingly poorly, I thought I’d better get a COVID test, just in case. So I gave my first drive-through one a whirl.

I hate COVID tests, but the woman doing it was very gentle, so I hardly retched at all, and she only went halfway to my brain up each nostril. Lucky me!

The illness had been brewing since last Wednesday, but I hadn’t read the signs properly. I was having trouble sleeping due to a gravelly feeling way down low in my oesophagus, right in the gap in my collarbone. I thought it was reflux.

As is my way, I soldiered on and went to The Whisky Show early on Friday evening with DD and did my best to pretend I liked whisky. But the truth is I’m really only interested in sipping it as an ingredient in a highball or with some Diet Coke. Sacrilege.

And then I went to a dinner with DD’s friends at Palm Beach. I felt a bit weary, but I put it down to old age.

I woke up on Saturday morning feeling snotty and hoped it was just my hay fever playing up, as I’ve been a bit blocked up for the last few weeks. But it was obvious by Sunday that I had a cold: runny nose, sore throat, cough … which also happen to be signs of COVID.

DD predicted I would be worse by Monday and he was right. I struggled out of bed briefly to let the dogs out, then spent the morning in bed. DD dropped over at lunchtime with chicken soup and Nurofen, bless him. He even said I might have the flu, which is a big call from him because he’s not one to over-dramatise (unlike his girlfriend).

My negative COVID results came through mid-morning as I lay coughing up a lung. I was very relieved not to have COVID as the contact tracing list would have been quite the slice of life and hundreds of whisky fans would have been sent into self isolation.

I really hope I feel better soon as I have jobs to hunt for, stories to write and events to attend.

Fingers crossed.

PS: Oh, and as a completely left field aside, are there any journalists out there who can explain why half the press releases I get these days have the quote marks ending like this: “which is what you need in a nightlife environment”, says Henry.

Since when did the comma or the full stop go after the quote mark? Anyone? It started with a lone PR person about four years ago, but now I get at least one a day. What are they teaching them at university?

Song of the day: Phil Collins “I missed again”