Snuffle, splutter

Getting me through a miserable weekend: cake, coffee, Codral cold tablets, Betadine throat gargle and Turkish apple tea.



Wish me luck.

Let's just hope some swine didn't give me more than I bargained for.

A licence to stop sneezing

When I was about eighteen years old, I had about six driving lessons - and decided that driving a motor vehicle reminded me of every sport I've ever tried (and detested): all that hand/eye coordination and outwitting your opponent... Ick!

So the world is definitely a safer place without me behind the wheel.

Travelling by public transport has never been much of a nuisance, and the money I save not running a car can be diverted to buying more books, action figures and comics - or booking the occasional taxi.

However, it's whenever I get a bad case of the sniffles - like today - that I run into trouble! In these dark of gloomy days of suspect-your-neighbour-of-everything, it's nigh impossible to buy strong cold and flu medication from a pharmacy without a driver's license, or at least equivalent proof of identity. My passport expired years ago - sigh - but who carries their passport to work and back every day unless you're a drug runner? - and it doesn't matter how choked up with mucous I happen to be, few chemists are willing to sell this potential "ice" manufacturer with pseudoephedrine!

I hear that some drug lords' minions spent their days going from pharmacy to pharmacy buying up cold and flu medication like it's going out of season, the crushing up the tablets to use as a major ingredient in ice.

Gosh, whenever I want ice, I just use plain tap water in a little plastic tray and stick it in the freezer! ;)

Ah choo!

(I did eventually get some cold and flu tablets, but with the hoops I had to jump through to get them, it almost would have been easier for me to go and do the computer simulator exercises, have a few driving lessons and pass my licence test first!)

This cold makes me feel funny

My clerical assistant in the library asked me today if I'd seen our stock of invisible mending tape, and did we need to order more? I told her that if the tape wasn't invisible then I could give her an answer!

Later she expressed concern about my cold. Having her revenge on my previous teasing, she said she hoped it wasn't equine flu (the current debacle threatening Australia's horse racing industry). I said, "Yeah, maybe it is equine flu, 'cos I'm feeling a little hoarse".

Har har!

Maybe you just had to be there.

Stuffed up

Well, it was inevitable. Staying with Maria, Peter and little Benjamin last weekend, all of whom were recovering from nasty bouts of head colds and dreadful hacking coughs, I was fairly sure I'd end up congested myself by this weekend. And so, as predicted, I've spent my bonus APEC Conference Public Holiday in my robe, and desperately trying to ignore the dog's hints about a walk around the block. Sorry Jack, I'm saving my strength to battle this lurgy, and to make sure it doesn't overwhelm me.

I was thinking of going up to Katoomba by train either tomorrow or Sunday, for some second hand bookshop rummaging - but good ol' State Rail have replaced Blue Mountains trains with buses so they can work on the line. (I thought the long weekend was meant to encourage us to avoid heading into the city?) By the same token, my author friend Natalie Jane Prior has a picture book launch over on the north side of Sydney on Sunday. I've been invited and, ordinarily, this may have meant a trip to Central on the country train, and then a leisurely and scenic ferry ride from Circular Quay but, with APEC breathing down everyone's necks, and no country trains doing the Katoomba to Penrith route (and presumably replaced by "all stations" trains to the city), it might be courting with disaster to try to get there. Poor Natalie and her family have to travel to the airport after the book launch; that may require lots of luck as well as good timing. Talk about "stuffed up".

Ah choo!