Wine
It is not very often that the Lifestyle Support Guru posts twice in one week, especially long posts, but I feel impelled to thank all of you who have supported me on my bed of pain this week, and I thought it only fair recompense to share some thoughts about LIFE-THREATENING ILLNESSES, which may serve as some help to you should you ever find yourselves in a similar state of miserable ill health, although I have done my best to rise above it (mainly following the advice of those who suggested hot toddies, brandy and other alcoholic cures – hic!). Lots of steps to follow, so CONCENTRATE!
1. Go to a wine tasting at the weekend with a group of friends (one of whom will figure throughout this whole sorry tale of woe) and have a jolly time. The wine orders are all collated and will all be delivered to your house in a few days. So far, so good.
2. A few days later, go to see arty-farty film about the Vatican treasures (see earlier post a couple of days ago) with aforementioned friend and feel the stirrings of a cold coming on, but take little notice because you are rarely ill and are sure it will disappear overnight. You do not even consider that it may be a LIFE-THREATENING ILLNESS which could curtail your whole social life.
3. Wake up the next day feeling the onset of a LIFE-THREATENING ILLNESS and panic (well, as
Germs and viruses!
much as the LSG CAN panic – this actually only really involves saying to the cats, ‘I don’t feel very well.’) because you’ve never encountered one of these LIFE-THREATENING ILLNESSES before (you can’t count hangovers) and you’ve got to feed the cats, go to the optician, write some quiz questions, do your Italian homework AND complete the next level of Pet Rescue. PRESSURE! Contact the friend who came to the wine tasting and the arty-farty film and ask her to give your apologies at Italian ( to which she also goes), grovel to the optician, write one quiz question, forget about the Italian homework and go to bed.
4. Read kind messages of support and outpourings of adoration for the LSG when you wake up.
5. The following day, decide that there’s a SLIGHT improvement, so the ‘alert’ has moved from LIFE-THREATENING to just SOCIAL-LIFE-THREATENING, especially in view of the fact that you have another wine tasting to attend – with the SAME FRIEND from previous social events! Do you begin to detect a pattern here?
6. The wine from the first wine tasting is delivered and then you head off to the second one of the week, girding your loins to face yet another of life’s trials – but SOMEONE has to do these things, otherwise where would the economy be? And all those wine lakes?
Large glass red wine
7. Friend and husband are on fine form and almost decide to go round a second time to check that none has been missed, but the LIFE-THREATENING ILLNESS is still curtailing your enjoyment to a small extent, so it is agreed that you will get a lift home (husband has had to curtail his social activity a great deal as well because he’s driving and, besides, the ‘measures’ are definitely getting smaller as the evening progresses, so it’s a law of diminishing returns) and they will pick up the wines from your house from the first wine tasting. SAME FRIEND asks how much she owes you and she comes up with a figure that is rather more than the figure you have on the invoice. It is only when checking her figures – which she had written in her diary – that you realise she had written the prices of the wines she’d ordered in a line in her diary above the date of the wine tasting, so had included the date in her calculations!
And the conclusion? Do not attend more than one event with the SAME FRIEND within a period of at least two weeks. It can’t just be a coincidence that the LIFE-THREATENING ILLNESS occurred in the week where the SAME FRIEND also played a part? Just saying…