They Were the Worst of Times, They Were the Worst of Times

BEDFORD ROAD: Regular visitors, if I still have any, are probably wondering what's happened to the good blogger of late? Well last week I was busy working on reviews and poems that were getting in the way of blogging and then, on Thursday, I was suddenly struck down with some type of flu/virus concoction that rendered me probably the sickest Australian since [insert tasteless reference to recently deceased celeb here].

It all started when I was getting ready to leave for work on Thursday. Before I walked out the door I said to Kate, I feel like I'm getting a headache. I very rarely get headaches so I didn't think too much about it. My legs seemed to ache as I walked to the Tube station which was a little unusual but then I had played football the night before. By the time I'd gotten off the Tube to walk into work I was starting to feel really bad and within half an hour I was wearing two jumpers, a jacket and shivering uncontrollably.

I left work in and tried to bunker down into my jumpers for the Tube ride home. I was overcome by the most desperate thirst. And the exacerbate things, the train seemed to stop for five minutes mid-tunnel between every station. I shivered my way home grabbing a Lucozade on the way. Little did I know that this would be the last time I'd leave the house for the next five days. Inside I swallowed a handful of cold and flu tablets and fell into bed fully clothed and shivering.

For the next five days I watched snatches of Sky Sports News - the edges of my dreams suggested to me that I was somehow involved in the World Cup with either Australia or Ireland - some crappy films, and the shapes the branches of the trees made outside my window.

There were gay times my dear readers. When I threw up five times in an hour or so on Friday night for instance. I suppose that craving for chicken was a little ill advised. And on Saturday night I was so dehydrated that I sat up all night downstairs drinking water, not caring if I made myself sick, as long as I could drink. The hours spent with towels draped across my forehead, turning them every five minutes or so ti try and keep myself cool.

The best thing though would have to be the dreams. An example: Rod and I were driving in a 4WD somewhere along the coast in, say, Northern Queensland. We are on a cliff face twenty metres above the ocean. Out of the water below, I see a giant fin arc up followed by a tail as a thirty foot shark elegantly reveals itself. But suddenly the tide started to rise. Yes, up the cliff face, and we were forced to reverse our car. Behind us were all these wood shacks with string wire fences. Mean faced little men peeked out from the blackness pointing shotguns. Nobody wanted us around. We tried to explain that we weren't interested in squatting, we just needed somewhere until the tides receded. But they weren't interested. So I left Rod with the vehicle and the went down to find a town which was almost like Surfers Paradise and tried to rent a room from Alf Stewart!

Then yesterday I suppose all of Kate's careful nursing had started to pay off and I was starting to feel better. I even walked, with some assistance, down to the high street for McDonalds. The foods the body craves in recovery. So there you have it, I haven't been ignoring you, just trying not to go out like a Victorian (not in the AB sense!).