Being ill and other stuff

 A dearth of blogging lately, partly due to being busy, but mainly due to being ill and spending time in bed feeling like a limp dishcloth, but fatter and with the ability to cough.  Our friend Mike Wood came back from Asia some weeks ago with a horrible cough that apparently goes on for about six weeks and which he has shared with friends (the Fu Cough).  In the spirit of Typhoid Mary, he has now taken it to California.  

I could, of course, blame the cough on Leeds.  I flew back last Thursday in the face of rain, howling winds and cold enough to freeze fingers on the short walk from the car park to the airport.  The planes were all delayed for an hour or so until things calmed down a bit.  Wandering round the terminal I saw a selection of “Yorkshire” crisps for sale.  The Yorkshire Chardonnay Wine Vinegar ones particularly caught my eye - from the Chardonnay vines of Tadcaster, presumably.      

Thursday and Friday were busy.  A wine tasting at Shirley and David Gill’s on Thursday afternoon.  The Monsieur from the wine shop in Payzac let us try his wares.  He has a small daughter of, possibly, 11 years old who he is training up in the wine business.  He occasionally asked her to name the grapes in any particular wine.  She also came round with jugs in which to discard untasted wine.  It seems a waste, but if we’d downed all seven glasses offered, we’d never have got home.

Friday morning was the Connect Book Club in St Yrieix and Friday afternoon I managed to trot Dolly round 4 or 5 miles in the back of Tourtoirac. 

Saturday I was beginning to flag but kept  going .  My stint in the St Yrieix charity shop in the morning and, in the evening, a concert at La Rhue, a Dutch run place near Jumilhac.   A woman called Angie Palmer was playing.  She obviously gets about a bit.  My remote genealogy cousin reported going to see her somewhere near Manchester last month.  She had a good voice and a thumping guitar style.  Some of it made me feel uneasy though.  Watching a woman standing along on a stage pounding away at her guitar seems somehow dated and a lot of work for the woman.  She could do with a band and bigger venues.   But she pounded well and with a good heart.

Sunday, I was fit for nothing but languishing in bed till yesterday lunchtime.  Watching a recorded episode of “The Village” I saw a scene in which a mad doctor insisted that a young woman lie prone in bed as a cure for over-excitability and also to break her spirit.  “You will stay here,” he said, “Until you are bent to do the will of a man!”  I am glad to report that it was the other way round in our house, as Mike kindly did the will of a woman and brought hot drinks and bowls of soup to my sick bed.  He also walked Dolly in the afternoons, which isn’t his job.

 The other thing Mike is good at is washing up.  Some of this is a bit barmy as we do have a dishwasher, but he says he prefers the sink method.  I managed to buy him a washing up brush designed for the manly user when I was in England.  I tried to use it myself yesterday but, unfortunately, its head fell off, though I managed to screw it back on as it hissed,  “That’s a man’s washing up brush, you bitch”.    When I took a picture of it to post here, the camera gave out the message, “Blink detected”.   It could be satanic.