Being bedridden, and venturing out
It's been the coldest week of the winter, with overnight temperatures dropping to -15 in places. Honestly, if I knew I had to be so ill I was bedbound, this is the week I'd've picked.
Tuesday I felt somewhat flakey, but I still dragged myself out to Mitch Benn's Distraction Club because I missed the last one owing to a clash with band rehearsals and didn't want to miss two in a row. And it was excellent; Mitch nailing "Quantum Mechanics" live, Abandoman's acoustic improv hip-hop - not to mention their Connect Four battle with a member of the audience (none other than AFP's Alan Bellingham) - and Rayguns Look Real Enough, who don't medley songs together so much as carpet-bomb them. Frankly the evening was worth it just to see The Segue Sisters and Kirsty Newton deliver a swinging a capella version of Hotel California, especially with the way they handled the guitar solo.
As I left the club it was already pretty cold, but not enough to stop me spending a few minutes chatting with Carrie from the Segue Sisters, and even joining her in an impromptu rendition of Tom Lehrer's The Elements, prompted by my complimenting her on their updated version from the previous month. By the time I got back to Reading, however, the cold was biting and in the five-minute walk from the train to my car my teeth were chattering.
Wednesday morning I woke up feeling like I'd been hit with the flu hammer. I had a fever, shivers, a headache, and felt utterly drained. Plus my throat felt like I'd been gargling caltrops. I emailed work to tell them I wouldn't be in, and my bandmates to tell them to cancel the rehearsal scheduled for that evening. I did so from my phone, because I couldn't summon up the energy to get out of bed and walk to the PC, 3 feet away.
It was much later in the day that I finally emerged, and only when other bodily functions insisted it was no longer possible to put it off any more. I made lemon & ginger tea with honey, and took a good look at my mouth in the mirror. Specifically my tonsils.
There's an old Bill Cosby sketch in which he tells how his childhood doctor explained how the tonsils are armed guards in your throat, fighting off the bad stuff. Normally, though, they're more like footmen, discreetly out of sight and blending in with the furniture. But mine had decided they were tired of being footmen and had decided to be bouncers. They were bursting out of their suits looking thuggish and angry. And a lot like streaky bacon.
I spent most of the day dead to the world. Thursday morning I managed to go to the doctor; I told her it was tonsillitis, she took one look in my mouth and thanked me for keeping her job easy. I returned home with antibiotics, and spent the next two days becoming gradually more active and hoping to be fit to gig by Saturday.
In the end I ventured out of the house on Saturday afternoon. It occurred to me that I'd missed feeding my robin for the last three days, right when the bitter cold meant he'd miss it the most. I was relieved to find him in our regular spot, and noted that for once he didn't even touch the mealworms, but instead wolfed down a number of suet pellets. Definitely a worthy addition for this weather.
The day was bright and clear - although still sodding freezing - so I decided to make a full circuit of the lake for the first time in ages. I just wish it had occurred to me to bring my camera. The entire lake was frozen over, with a ruffled greyish look that spoke of snow melting to slush. On closer inspection it would turn out to be solid ice, possibly where slush had been frozen back to ice and new snow had fallen on top of it to repeat the process. White streaks where actual snow still lay shone brilliantly in the sun. The sight of a single heron standing in the middle of the ice was one of the things to make me wish I had my camera.
The others were rather more fleeting, and I doubt I could've photographed them anyway. One was a rare encounter with a fox; I've seen them on the campus before, but never in broad daylight. This one was about 40 feet away when we caught sight of eachother at the same moment; we stared at eachother for several seconds before it turned and bounded off into the bushes.
But even rarer was my final encounter. At the top end of the lake the banks slope down at a 45 degree angle, meaning that if you look down at the lake from the path your eyes are effectively at ground level for about 8ft. And through the tangle of bushes I saw something moving. It was about the size of a moorhen, but sleeker, and instead of the graceful wading motion of a water bird it moved in a series of awkward jumps; the word galumphing sprang immediately to mind. I followed it for several paces until I found a point with a clear view, and was stunned to see it was a sparrow hawk. The dense bushes hardly seemed its natural territory, yet there it was, tearing strips from something and devouring them. Presumably it had made a kill somewhere else and then brought it to this inaccessable place to feed undisturbed. I managed to watch it for a minute or two, and though I never got an unobstructed view I was thrilled to have seen it at all.
And I managed the gig in the evening, and survived, and should be fit for work again Monday. Go me.
Tuesday I felt somewhat flakey, but I still dragged myself out to Mitch Benn's Distraction Club because I missed the last one owing to a clash with band rehearsals and didn't want to miss two in a row. And it was excellent; Mitch nailing "Quantum Mechanics" live, Abandoman's acoustic improv hip-hop - not to mention their Connect Four battle with a member of the audience (none other than AFP's Alan Bellingham) - and Rayguns Look Real Enough, who don't medley songs together so much as carpet-bomb them. Frankly the evening was worth it just to see The Segue Sisters and Kirsty Newton deliver a swinging a capella version of Hotel California, especially with the way they handled the guitar solo.
As I left the club it was already pretty cold, but not enough to stop me spending a few minutes chatting with Carrie from the Segue Sisters, and even joining her in an impromptu rendition of Tom Lehrer's The Elements, prompted by my complimenting her on their updated version from the previous month. By the time I got back to Reading, however, the cold was biting and in the five-minute walk from the train to my car my teeth were chattering.
Wednesday morning I woke up feeling like I'd been hit with the flu hammer. I had a fever, shivers, a headache, and felt utterly drained. Plus my throat felt like I'd been gargling caltrops. I emailed work to tell them I wouldn't be in, and my bandmates to tell them to cancel the rehearsal scheduled for that evening. I did so from my phone, because I couldn't summon up the energy to get out of bed and walk to the PC, 3 feet away.
It was much later in the day that I finally emerged, and only when other bodily functions insisted it was no longer possible to put it off any more. I made lemon & ginger tea with honey, and took a good look at my mouth in the mirror. Specifically my tonsils.
There's an old Bill Cosby sketch in which he tells how his childhood doctor explained how the tonsils are armed guards in your throat, fighting off the bad stuff. Normally, though, they're more like footmen, discreetly out of sight and blending in with the furniture. But mine had decided they were tired of being footmen and had decided to be bouncers. They were bursting out of their suits looking thuggish and angry. And a lot like streaky bacon.
I spent most of the day dead to the world. Thursday morning I managed to go to the doctor; I told her it was tonsillitis, she took one look in my mouth and thanked me for keeping her job easy. I returned home with antibiotics, and spent the next two days becoming gradually more active and hoping to be fit to gig by Saturday.
In the end I ventured out of the house on Saturday afternoon. It occurred to me that I'd missed feeding my robin for the last three days, right when the bitter cold meant he'd miss it the most. I was relieved to find him in our regular spot, and noted that for once he didn't even touch the mealworms, but instead wolfed down a number of suet pellets. Definitely a worthy addition for this weather.
The day was bright and clear - although still sodding freezing - so I decided to make a full circuit of the lake for the first time in ages. I just wish it had occurred to me to bring my camera. The entire lake was frozen over, with a ruffled greyish look that spoke of snow melting to slush. On closer inspection it would turn out to be solid ice, possibly where slush had been frozen back to ice and new snow had fallen on top of it to repeat the process. White streaks where actual snow still lay shone brilliantly in the sun. The sight of a single heron standing in the middle of the ice was one of the things to make me wish I had my camera.
The others were rather more fleeting, and I doubt I could've photographed them anyway. One was a rare encounter with a fox; I've seen them on the campus before, but never in broad daylight. This one was about 40 feet away when we caught sight of eachother at the same moment; we stared at eachother for several seconds before it turned and bounded off into the bushes.
But even rarer was my final encounter. At the top end of the lake the banks slope down at a 45 degree angle, meaning that if you look down at the lake from the path your eyes are effectively at ground level for about 8ft. And through the tangle of bushes I saw something moving. It was about the size of a moorhen, but sleeker, and instead of the graceful wading motion of a water bird it moved in a series of awkward jumps; the word galumphing sprang immediately to mind. I followed it for several paces until I found a point with a clear view, and was stunned to see it was a sparrow hawk. The dense bushes hardly seemed its natural territory, yet there it was, tearing strips from something and devouring them. Presumably it had made a kill somewhere else and then brought it to this inaccessable place to feed undisturbed. I managed to watch it for a minute or two, and though I never got an unobstructed view I was thrilled to have seen it at all.
And I managed the gig in the evening, and survived, and should be fit for work again Monday. Go me.