Time flu

[j4]

Och, I know you weren't worried really (though thank you to brrm for txting to see why I hadn't been on irc!), but in case anybody wondered why I've been completely silent on the internets for the past week, it's because I've been holed up in our Botley Badgerarium with flu. UCISA sent me home last Thursday (after I'd manfully struggled in for three days with what I thought was an annoying tickly cough [and what my officemates probably thought was the most annoying thing in the universe]) and today's the first day I've been able to go back in -- for the last few days I've been unable to do anything but sleep, take painkillers, and read Chalet School books. "Wot no internets?" I hear you cry -- no, unfortunately, we're still not networked at home yet, though this was probably for the best, otherwise I might have subjected you all to long posts about my fevered imaginings in which my cough was actually an email address and everything else in my brain was a directory on a website which I had to redesign, and if I could only tidy up all the documents in the directory I'd be able to think clearly again. Yes, count yourselves lucky I didn't bore you with that.

So, after a week of this virus, I am fed up of coughing; I am fed up of all my muscles aching from coughing; I am fed up of waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat; I am fed up of baby food (apart from PORRIDGE); and I never want to see another sodding aspirin again. HOWEVER! I am delighted with my new discovery, that is, Beechams "All in one" cough medicine. The image on the packaging clearly invokes the Holy Grail in its iconography -- look at those rays of healing light, that glowing cup of immortality! -- and its regenerative powers seem to live up to the implicit claim. Be aware, though, that far from giving you eternal life, it actually destroys brain cells, being 19% alcohol. SO DARK THE COUGH OF MAN. But no wonder it makes you feel better, eh?

Anyway, enough about illness. If you've posted anything or emailed me in the last week I won't have seen it; and there's a high chance that email will have been swept away in the tides of spam (on which I've just had to do a fairly brutal deletion job). So please comment here and let me know if I've missed anything drastic/important/exciting/interesting!

Comments

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

Check out the pictures of my gingerbread house and the ice bar! Go on! (My last two entries). They are both things of amazing beauty.

Sorry to hear about flu.

[emperor]

Coventry house-warming, 16th of December! [well, and a house-cooling tomorrow, but I'm guessing you won't make that!]

[j4.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'm going to be able to make it to the house-warming, I'm afraid, because I'm supposed to be singing carols in Cambridge that day! (Ironic, I know...) Would love to come and visit you some other time though. How's the house? Oh okay I will read back through your LJ and see what you've said... :-)

[emperor]

We got the keys today, and house is Of Joy. Soon it will be Of No **** Room, because we have Too Much Stuff, but for now it is Of Joy. Hopefully it has internet soon :)

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

Hang on, are you atreic's husband? Is it a very small world? Or are lots of people moving from Cambridge to Coventry right now?

[emperor]

Guilty as charged. How do you know atreic? I guess that you are an OULE...

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

You saw though my cunning disguise as someone-who-never-has-anything-to-do-with-panto, then.

I'm Elizabeth, a very old OULE of the Noga generation, but bizarrely still in Ox. We met briefly at the first Varsity match, but I fear I can't actually remember what you look like. Tsh, you should come to more voles type stuff!

[j4.livejournal.com]

I think you need to rename yourself to half_of_j4's_friends_list! You are clearly the missing link between all my social circles. :-P

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

I think it's only emperor who I know who you didn't know I knew? Unless there are more people I know who you know though I don't know you know I know them?

Oh yes there's totorojo! That one's more random. But my officemate also knows her from days of yore so she's clearly just someone everyone knows.

How do you know emperor and atreic, anyway?

[lnr]

*hug* glad you're feeling somewhat better! We were wondering about you on irc again today. Hope BT get sorted soon!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Oh dear! Sorry to hear that. But hoorah for Beecham's.

I nearly texted you last night to see if you were coming out, but something (probably brain-death) intervened and I didn't, for which I'm sorry. I take it you will have not much voice or energy this weekend either? (There's a rehearsal on Saturday if you are feeling up to coming along; Hallelujah chorus and two Christmas carols.)

[j4.livejournal.com]

I'll see how I feel tomorrow but to be honest I think I'm unlikely to be singing for a while yet! I'm really sorry -- I do want to join the choir but I don't really want to be "the new one who just coughs all the time". :-}

And I'm sorry I didn't txt to say I wouldn't be coming... I'm not sure I even knew what day it was until I remembered I'd missed the bins, only I hadn't because it was the recycling which we haven't got a box for yet. Somebody's just told me it's Friday today, and December! What's that all about then? I think I missed November. :-/

[k425.livejournal.com]

I think I missed November

It rained.

Glad you're feeling better.

[j4.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry I didn't make Saturday either -- still coughing too much to sing (and aching too much from the coughing to be able to take big breaths!). Hopefully (touch wood!) I will be well enough to sing on Wednesday... this lurgy is really getting me down... :-(

[covertmusic.livejournal.com]

I *was* beginning to worry, actually! Good to see you back.

Things you might have missed - I wax pretentious in the last two posts on my LJ (f'locked but you can see them); might be down your street.

Oh, and I haven't posted this elsewhere, but I'm an uncle. Bloody hell.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Congrats on unclehood! Hope your sister and the new niece/nephew (?) are both well.

If your LJ posts are really pretentious then I'll give them a miss, thanks. :-> If OTOH by "pretentious" you just mean you've written something interesting that isn't connected with your PhD, then I'll have a look...

[covertmusic.livejournal.com]

Nephew. My sis is fine - the kid was a couple of weeks early and she had to be ambulanced to hospital, because the labour was hurrying along, but she and her son were out of hospital the following day :)

Pretentious: you know what I'm like. Interesting isn't my call, but they're about sampling, creativity, the nature of ideas and meaning, the price of fish, you know the kind of thing...

[taimatsu]

Arr! I'm sorry to hear you've been ill!

I miss my Chalet School books...

[j4.livejournal.com]

Come and borrow my Chalet School books! Including some rare ones! Well okay not that rare but I do have A Chalet Girl from Kenya which I've just read for the first time (I bought it about a year ago but I'd been saving it for when I needed cheering up) and Joey Goes to the Oberland.

Must ... not ... look at eBay. NO!

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

*hug*hug*hug* I am afeared I might be just coming down with this illness now.

Your Christmas present from me will be on its way to you from Cardiff because papersky's aunt marylace was kind enough to take all my Christmas presents for that side of the pond home with her this past weekend, so do not be disconcerted by the non-Montrealness of it.

[j4.livejournal.com]

*hugs* to you too -- I really hope you escape the lurg or at least get a milder version of it!

You are very kind to keep sending me things (not just presents but emails and comments and hugs and so on) when I am so bad at doing anything in return. And I'm afraid I really haven't done anything about Christmas this year yet so your present will be, um, a New Year present? I'm sorry for being so useless. :-(

[kake]

I have neither posted anything unusually exciting nor sent you email. And I didn't know you'd been ill. But I'm glad you're on the mend!

[brrm.livejournal.com]

*hug* glad you're emerging from the ick.

[imc.livejournal.com]

And if you don't feel like spending two hours on Saturday learning two carols that you could sing in your sleep, there's always gnimmel's housewarming and Beggar's Opera singthrough (http://gnimmel.livejournal.com/89590.html) instead…

[j4.livejournal.com]

Um... if I don't feel up to spending two hours doing a bit of easy singing, I'm even less likely to feel up to spending three hours travelling in order to do what sounds (from gnimmel's post) as though it'll be about 10 hours' worth of heavy sight-singing and play-reading, then sleeping uncomfortably on someone's floor before doing another three hours' travelling!

[imc.livejournal.com]

Well, it depends on your perspective. If you look at it as "tedium vs interesting stuff" then you get a different answer than you would if you are seeing it as "easy vs difficult and inconvenient". They're both legitimate points of view, and in any case it's not compulsory to go to either event even if you are miraculously cured by tomorrow morning. I just mentioned it because you asked for comments about [potentially] interesting things (and I didn't know gnimmel had just posted a new entry about it).

[j4.livejournal.com]

It does indeed depend on your perspective -- e.g. the Leys choir doesn't sound like "tedium" to me (otherwise I wouldn't be thinking of going to it). Two hours is only a short rehearsal, the Hallelujah chorus is a jolly good shout, and Christmas carols are always great even if I can sing most of them in my sleep (the usual problem is remembering which of the top three parts I'm supposed to be singing this time). Not sure why you're so down on it but I think it sounds fun!

However my perspective at the moment is that I'm still coughing most of the time and all my muscles ache from having coughed non-stop for the last 7 days; this does kind of colour my decisions about what to do and what to avoid. I'd certainly been planning to go to gnimmel's housewarming (it's been on my calendar for months) but I really just don't think I'm going to be up to the travelling, let alone the singing. Which is a pain. :-/

[imc.livejournal.com]

Not sure why you're so down on it

Mainly because I'm exaggerating for effect. I am actually in it (since about 9 days ago) but slightly irritated that the one day in the month they chose for the Saturday rehearsal happened to be on the same day as the housewarming which I would otherwise have considered going to.

The first evening rehearsal I went to (which featured Hallelujah and a bit of the Anvil Chorus) was quite jolly, but I suspect that's because most choir members had already spent several rehearsals on it. It's when you have to sing lines of "O Come All Ye Faithful" repeatedly in sections of no more than four bars and wait for the other sections to do theirs that it becomes slightly less than exciting. But then, I've been spoiled as it's been a very long time since the last time I was in a choir that needed intense note-bashing.