First cold since before the summer, as I may have said elsewhere.? It’s only a head cold and mostly involves tissues, for the nose and eyes, hot drinks, for the tickly cough and hammering The Beast with Vitamin C until I felt it begin to subside.? I also stayed in bed until it felt right to get up.? It started last Thursday and has been mostly annoying, rather than keeping me in a chair, moaning.

I then thought back (you really have to at this early stage) to a previous life.? The cold would have started on Thursday.? I would have had a rough night, what with waking to blow my nose and take a drink of water for the dry throat.? I would have woken at six twenty in the morning with the alarm, thinking,

“Only one day until the weekend.? I can do that.? Besides, Friday is the day when the least number of people are in school.? It would be awful trying to arrange cover – I know how I would feel.”

I would then have dragged myself into school, spread my germs around for good measure, made it through the day as best I could and left as early as it was decent to do so.? I would have begged someone else to make dinner, if it wasn’t already someone else’s turn, and dropped into an armchair, where I would most likely have fallen asleep.? The whole weekend would have been centred around getting better enough to go back in on Monday, probably fitting in a little essential washing etc.? This would not have been much of a weekend for me, much less my family.

This time, however, I acknowledged that I was ill, said (possibly more than once) how grateful I was that I didn’t have to go to work, still managed to get dressed and do a few things round the house – because I could stop whenever I wanted to for a rest.? I went out a couple of times over the weekend, making sure that I didn’t push myself too hard,? Still took the Vitamin C and was constantly surrounded by tissues and hot drinks, but I wasn’t stressed by having a time scale in which to improve my health and that made all the difference to the healing process.

And here we are, back at the point where we realise that my previous life should have been more like my present one.? We should all be able to use the weekends – or whichever days we have off (different work patterns make for different ‘weekends’) – for relaxation.? We should be able to fit in walks in the park, shopping for pleasure rather than groceries, visits to football matches, attendance at dog shows – whatever is your passion, whilst still employed.? We should all be awake enough to appreciate our families, especially our partners (if we have one) and our friends, and be able to interact on a more sociable level.? Everyone who experienced a three day week, back in the seventies – not prepared to discuss the political implications here – did not enjoy it.? However, if we all worked three or four days and rested for the others, we would be more content.? We would still need to be paid properly for our skills, so not less, but the work could be spread around more evenly.? This all presupposes, of course, that there are enough skilled workers to fill the gaps – another whole discussion.

Anyway, I digress.? I know I am more content and wish I could share my contentment.? For now, I will see my cold out and enjoy my freedom whilst hoping that it won’t be too long before others can enjoy theirs.