atischoo!

Today’s post is brought to you from my sick bed, otherwise known as one end of the sofa.

The point of this rambling post in the middle of a Monday afternoon is that I’m off sick. Not proper sick, just full-of-cold sick, the kind of full-of-cold that doesn’t completely incapacitate, but does mean blowing your nose every 30 seconds, and also means that you could work (probably) but it’s best not to risk it, because everything would take 4 times as long and you’d probably have to redo most of it anyway.

So here I am curled up on the sofa, occasionally having tea and cake buttled to me by Peter, who is doing an admirable job of being nurse for the day.

And yes, this entire post is going to be filled with pictures of things I can see from my sick bed. This, for example, is the other end of the sofa. Quite shockingly, I’m under a blanket that isn’t red (you may have noticed everything else in this room is…). This one usually lives at the end of the bed, just in case, but it came downstairs with me at stupid-o-clock on Sunday morning, when it was unanimously decided that, for the sake of (non) marital harmony, I should probably take my sniffling and snuffling elsewhere.

Most of the day has been spent reading, ambling round the internet peering other people’s lives, drinking fizzy vitamin c tablets, and sniffling, of course.

And while we’re doing a tour of the living room, I should point out that bizarre round thing at the other end of the sofa there. Apparently it used to be filled with glass, and went on the top of a gatepost to some stately home. It was being thrown out (having no glass and being rather rusty) and somehow found its way into our living room. Things seem to do that round here. I think there was a grand plan to turn it into some kind of feature for the garden.

So this is the view in one direction. The other sofa, also covered in blankets, is on the left, and beyond that an ancient rocking horse (that is now retired and no longer rocks, except in the kind of cool, spiritual sense of course). Beyond Neddy is an American Organ, kind of like a harmonium type of thing, very ornate, with bellows. On the right you can see the new stable door, and the door of the old kitchen cabinet that houses the tv (open in case watching an afternoon film took my fancy – although it hasn’t so far).

If you look carefully in those mirrors, you can see us sitting like a pair of book ends, each with a laptop, occasionally waving at each other. We call this ‘modern couple’ time, and try to limit it as much as possible, although a bit of necessary but companionable internet trawling is no bad thing sometimes (and it’s fascinating to see what we both end up looking at – two different worlds on one settee).

The view in the other direction is pretty autumnal. There’s a few trees outside the window and over the road, so there’s usually a bird or two to watch if you sit here for long enough. Those twigs in the jar are the last of the magnolia, which I cut down a few weeks ago to make way for the new terrace, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw the furry buds away, so put them in jars all round the house. The leaves have been turning brown and shedding ever since, creating a little mini autumn on each windowsill, and now we’re mostly left with twigs and furry buds, which are also very autumnal and rather fetching.

(oh, and the poor thing in the pot to the left? A pretty geranium, sent by the lovely Fay. I’m sure if she’d kept it, it would be four times the size it is now. I’m just impressed that I’ve kept it alive for this long.

Round about lunchtime, I did manage to summon the enthusiasm for a shower, and even managed to get dressed! I came downstairs to soup for lunch – parsnip and kidney bean and garlic and cucumber, although sadly I couldn’t taste any of that, although it was nice and warm.

(oh, and I’d removed the top blanket layer by this point – down to only two!)

Right, I think it’s about time I went back to concentrating on the business of making myself feel better. I do feel more vaguely like a human than I did this morning, but it’s taken me about an hour to write this post, in between staring out of the window, dozing, and nose blowing episodes.

Peter’s gone out to buttle us some treats, and I’m pondering plans for the evening. A bath? Some knitting and a nice easy to watch film perhaps?

Or maybe a little more loafing…

 

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