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Chef Flu

Blearrgh

It is a truth universally acknowledged in hospitality circles that everyone gets ill in January. You've been wound up tight in December, surviving on not enough sleep and probably too much to drink, your immune system isn't in the best of shape, the moment you relax your body goes right, you bastard, now you're for it.

So I was expecting it, happens every year.

What I hadn't factored into account was that this was the Winter of The Multiple Lurgies, where everyone's immune systems are in ruins from two years of covid and various diseases stalk the land in unhappy conjunction, so when the chef flu got me, I wasn't as ready as I should be.

After a busy New Year's Day in the pub (following a frankly unhinged New Year's Eve in the pub) I wasn't well rested, my defences weren't high, but still, I felt okay on the Monday morning. Indeed, we took a little trip to Martin Mere, so I could get the year's birding off to a flier (because that's how fucking cool I am, aright? Deal with it). I was feeling pretty good about life, ticked off a load of the usual suspects and a couple of bonuses, and then I coughed. Just a shallow one, a little one, not very chesty. I thought no more of it. By the time we left I was coughing a bit more, but it wasn't abnormal. Felt a bit shivery at home as I made dinner, but it was nothing a couple of ports and a viewing of the very silly but very entertaining Knives Out couldn't cure (yes, yes, I know, I don't get a lot of free time, okay?)

Not sure I woke up on Tuesday. I mean, I was up, I was moving around, but it was through a fog of full body aching, and if I'm not sure if I woke up, i sure as hell couldn't get to sleep. I feel deeply sorry for the author Guy Shrubsole, whose excellent book "Britain's Lost Rainforests" has been my companion this fevered, sleepless week. It's a great book, but I'm always going to associate it with feeling like shit.

And now, a few days on (because I was far too useless to actually finish this blog post off) poor old China Mieville can add his name to the list of Authors That Remind Me of Being Ill, and if I never see another episode of fucking Superstore it'll be too soon (Mrs Coastalblog has also been hammered by the lurgy, and she's a comfort watch kind of a gal). Ten days in, and it's sort of easing, but not much.

Of course, much innocent amusement has been had at my expense by the aforementioned Mrs Coastalblog, as yours truly has always been perhaps a touch too bullish in his attitude to illness., as in tending to ignore it safe in the knowledge that it'll bugger off in an hour or so. In my defence, though, even Covid didn't put me on my backside as long as this has.

So, what can we learn from this tale of woe? Not a lot really, other than I'm slowly, at the age of 45, starting to realise that I'm not quite as indestructible as I thought I was, and also that the moment that the Ibuprofen kicks in is more euphoric than any beat drop from my clubbing days. I'm not going to bemoan the lockdown restrictions that buggered my immune system so, nor do I, unlike newly disgraced Tory (the year may change, but some things remain constant) Andrew Bridgen think that it's anything to do with vaccines. Nope. It's just one of them. A bit of a twat.

Happy Bastard New Year.





































































































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