Cough splutter
I've got something of a smoker's cough at the moment, which is a bit of a bugger given that I've not touched a cigarette in over twenty-five years, and even back then I was just a curious kid who soon worked out it was a stupid idea. Wheezing and hacking up gobbets of phlegm isn't my idea of fun, nor the emphysemic bubbling in my chest with every laboured breath.
The problem started around Boxing Day, when The Horse Doctor came down with the Christmas lurgy that had been doing the rounds of her office. I thought I'd got it too, but it passed in a single day of being very tired. Whoopee! It's not like me to miss out on anything contagious going about.
To be fair, I didn't start to succumb until a couple of days after New Year, despite sharing air, house and bed with someone with the sniffles. But when the nastiness hit, it was worse than anything I can remember. Most of last week I spent in bed with the cat - she's not as good a hot water bottle as Chiswick used to be. This week the worst of the shivers and headache have gone, leaving me with this hacking wet cough that makes me sound like I've been a sixty a day man for the last forty years. Nice.
And it's not helped by the chimney refusing to draw properly. It's always been a bit of a bugger when the wind blows, filling the sitting room with choking coal smoke when its least convenient. But since Christmas it's been doing it pretty much all the time. We've even had it swept, to no avail. Now all the cobwebs show up black, which is quite frightening. It makes you realise just how many of them there are.
Still, we're only here for another six weeks or so, and I'm getting a stove fitted in the new place if it's the only money I can afford to spend on it.
Meanwhile, back to the phlegm.
The problem started around Boxing Day, when The Horse Doctor came down with the Christmas lurgy that had been doing the rounds of her office. I thought I'd got it too, but it passed in a single day of being very tired. Whoopee! It's not like me to miss out on anything contagious going about.
To be fair, I didn't start to succumb until a couple of days after New Year, despite sharing air, house and bed with someone with the sniffles. But when the nastiness hit, it was worse than anything I can remember. Most of last week I spent in bed with the cat - she's not as good a hot water bottle as Chiswick used to be. This week the worst of the shivers and headache have gone, leaving me with this hacking wet cough that makes me sound like I've been a sixty a day man for the last forty years. Nice.
And it's not helped by the chimney refusing to draw properly. It's always been a bit of a bugger when the wind blows, filling the sitting room with choking coal smoke when its least convenient. But since Christmas it's been doing it pretty much all the time. We've even had it swept, to no avail. Now all the cobwebs show up black, which is quite frightening. It makes you realise just how many of them there are.
Still, we're only here for another six weeks or so, and I'm getting a stove fitted in the new place if it's the only money I can afford to spend on it.
Meanwhile, back to the phlegm.
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