Fighting the Sickness

I have come down again with my old Nemesis; the mucus on the lungs ploy.

Once again I have begun, and hopefully, almost finished the treatment as it does appear to be in decline. Ginger, shallots and garlic are all consumed raw, salt water flushed up my nostrils and the old towel over the head trick to a streaming cocktail of the above. Also, tons of vitamin C drinks, no dairy products (thanks Rob) and no beer or anything cold. It's a horrible cough and after a night of lying down I awake to a 5 minute retching to get the bloody stuff up and out.

We had a four day weekend which enabled me to take a good rest and try to sort it out. The boys all went away, so I watched some cracking movies, namely, Ghandi, Knowing, Outlander, Things We Lost in the Fire, Unthinkable. All were great and worthy viewing.

My PC also packed up after I tried one of those "improve the performance of your PC" programs. What a lots of shit. It ceased up and could not even load Windows. Off to the shop that went, which gave me some downtime. Always a pleasure when the PC packs up and I can do other things again, like living. I picked up Michael Caine's "What's it All About?" which Patrick very kindly bought on my behalf on a recent trip to the islands. An incredible story and I will be so sad when it is finished. This is, of course, written by the great man himself, unlike the biographies he also got for me on John Peel, Ustinov and David Niven. These books were bland an boring and I didn't make it very far. Of course, I read The Moon's a Balloon in the far distant past and listened to Dear Me by Ustinov in Spain last year, both of which are excellent and hilarious.

Wonderful to hear of Peter's wedding and glad it went so well.

So I have been busy lying in the back garden and doing some sweeping and weeding, and the occasional walk in the woods.

School is fun and easy and family life is quite blissful. I am so glad I stopped the private classes. It is easier to be a bit more careful with money and have lots of free time than struggling with constant lesson planning and driving back and forth into town to teach. I know that when you have a bit more money one only wastes it on expensive foods anyway.

I got hold of Napoleon Total War which I can recommend and am attempting to acquire Starcraft 2 which has just been made available. The crack seems to have the better of me at the moment but I shall persevere.

The weather (oh dear) is quite pleasant; cloudy and not so hot and I have been sleeping quite well, though can rise at anytime from about 4:30 am. Normally then I go into the kitchen and make my witch's potions to kill the virus that lurks inside me.