Ill

Hold your breath while you read this, I don’t want to pass anything on.

Heed the red cross painted on our door.

Yep. We’re ill.

I thought it was my usual, hayfever, but it’s not. It’s a cold. In the middle of summer. The weather is hot, but I have a cold. I should call Alanis Morrissette and let her know.

I’ve been trying not to moan about it, but, y’know, I’m a man, and we have to keep up that dubiously acquired reputation for making a massively big deal out of every little cough and sniffle.

Just don’t call it man-flu please, rare are the phrases I find more irritating than that one.

I feel like I’m gargling an assortment of rusty cutlery, my nostrils have decided they don’t like working at the same time and have started a shift pattern where they switch over every two hours.

Then there’s the snot. Oh my, the snot. There’s so much of it! WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? Runny like water snot. Stubborn snot with the consistency of glue. Dried up snot that lives in the nasal cavity, making you want to pick your nose.

Yuk.

Mrs L got the cold first, and still has it. I got the cold next, and still have it. I suppose it was inevitable that The Creature would eventually succumb to the germs which are obviously floating around our house.

He has.

Eleven and a half weeks in the world before he first experienced the dreaded common cold.

He’s doing alright so far, the ill is only really being given away by his sudden development of hilariously loud and raspy breathing. It’s like sharing the bedroom with a whole farm’s worth of pigs.

It must be so confusing for the tiny people, and what can they do about it? Nothing. I’ve been dosed up on paracetamol, decongestant, nasal spray, antihistamine (because the pollen’s still there, behind the cold) and ibuprofen and I still feel like complete arse. We haven’t even given him any Calpol yet, though it’s on standby.

Weapons

I get a lot of colds. I occasionally joke that I have hayfever from April to September, and a cold from October to March. Except I’m not joking.

The terrible thing is that my dad is exactly the same, which makes me think Cam probably has a lifetime of this to look forward to as well.

Sorry son.