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Feeling fairly terrible, actually. The cold I’ve been fighting for a week with copious amounts of fruit and fruit juice chose yesterday to finally blossom. Woke up with a throbbing head and a nose that went from trickle to ugh over the course of the day.

That made getting out of bed very unpleasant indeed, so of course after dropping off dad at his friends I was late arriving in Galleywood. Breakfast was ready, the cat was waiting to be tickled and military-grade plans for a late lunch (’late’ turned out to be 4.30pm) were already being put into action.

So the morning was, by necessity, fairly slow and relaxing and mainly revolved around cups of tea, and crosswords in the conservatory. No telly, on account of the fact the schedulers have so perfectly blended Christmas morning into the regular day-to-day line-up that there was nothing even vaguely worth watching.

I refuse to watch Dale Winton.

I scooted home mid-afternoon so Sal and Dan could deliver the cat. He promptly took up his regular position on a lounge chair from where he can survey two thirds of the flat and has remained there ever since, unless there’s been someone sitting where he has wanted to be, in which case he has been on top of them.

As tradition dictates we returned to Galleywood en masse, and ate masses en masse. No crackers or hats, which we’ve not had since they terrified the life out of the long-dead dog, but enough food to feed us for a week (which, in the form of curries and pies, is precisely what it will do). After that, no chance at all of doing anything energetic.

Not that we’d want to - it was dark.

So we did the unwrapping, ably aided by an inquisitive cat that insisted on pulling at the string, paper and corners of boxes so she could see in them before we could ourselves. As a kid there’s no way I’d have been able to wait until seven to open my presents. I would have been more like the cat.

Did finally succumb to the TV mid-evening, but gave up when there was suggestion Only Fools and Horses would be on next. Retreated to the safety of board games, tissues and Lemsip until it was all over, then spent the rest of the evening flopping around in front of whatever was on.

I forget what it was now.

The upstairs people are being very loud. I’m typing this in bed and I can hear the stupid woman laughing, as she always does. Her husband - I presume he’s her husband - is talking into a bucket, I think.

The downstairs people spent most of this afternoon playing very loud music. We (dad, Sal, Dan and I) countered by putting on a DVD at high volume, but as it was Fargo, where the noisiest thing is the fall of snow, the point was kind of missed.

Anyhow, I woke up feeling pretty bad this morning. I was hoping yesterday was going to be the peak, but it wasn’t. Apparently. Sal’s gone down with something remarkably similar, so we spent the day sharing a box of tissues. Everyone else was very polite and ate all the food I cooked, regardless of the potential health hazard.

Or at least I assume they did, but I’ve not checked down the back of the cushions.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 26th, 2003 at 11:52 pm and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.