The season to be……….ill

Our little one was sent home from his nursery on Friday with the, er, vomiting virus. Let me explain, at the moment there is a wonderful and very complete selection of flu, cold and other assorted bugs flying around Italy. It happens every year in this period and the already wealthy pharmacists get a little richer as a result of selling yet more expensive cure-all concoctions. The TV news seems to carry almost daily coverage of the flu bugs floating around and everyone gets ill, even though the reason for so much illness may be down to a sort of mass hysteria generated by the media. Italian chemists were forced to lower the cost of flu jabs after someone discovered that Italian prices were rather over the top (same situation existed with regard to the price of baby milk, which was criminally expensive) .

Anyway, after digressing I’ll get back on track. Baby was sent home and was vomiting merrily everywhere. Nothing would stay down, not even water. Baby was all floppy and lifeless with none of his usual bounciness. He seemed OK, just sort of exhausted. By the time my other half had got back from work, after I had got in , baby had improved considerably and was starting to make noises and looking visibly better. Then we gave him some stuff called ‘Plasil’ and the vomiting stopped, appetite came back and he started to get back to normal. He even slept well through the night, so it looked as though things were on the up again.

Saturday was the usual domestic chores and shopping. My other half got three pairs of jeans for €60 Euros in a local ‘stockhouse’ shop. I couldn’t find anything which I liked so saved some cash, until five minutes later when I went into another shop and bought myself a new suit for a reasonable price, but a lot more than €60 Euros alas. We toddled of home with our purchases and spent the evening with some friends. Claudio and myself went off to get the pizza, one of those large round ‘deep pan’ things, but when we got back my other half was blocked in the bathroom. At first, I thought she was just in there for normal ‘call of nature’ reasons, however her visits became more and more regular until she was spending more time in than out. She had been hit by the vomiting bug, which also causes ‘squitty bottom’ or ‘liquid bottom’ or the ‘runs’ just to make its presence really felt. So, baby, better half both down, but what about yours truly? Well, I was not to be spared and only just made it to the loo at around 5 in the morning. Yes, I too had succumbed to the vomiting bug and I have spent the most of the day feeling like poo warmed up and making dashes to the loo. Luckily, other half’s episode with the bug seemed to be coming to an end. Baby was horribly lively all the time, which made us both feel so much better. Not.

I’m now starting to feel better and hope that I will be back on form tomorrow so I can get down to some work. One of the great things about working for yourself is that when you get ill you get no sick pay, in fact you can ending up losing money. This means that you tend to drag yourself into work while feeling like death warmed up. But at least I don’t have to worry about any boss complaining about work not being done, which is great. The only idiot I report to is myself. I suppose I could try threatening myself with the sack or something. Maybe I could just refuse to give myself a pay rise. The possibilities for treating myself badly are almost endless.

Over and out from the land of bugs.