Sore Nose

Not much to write about at the moment because I’ve been ill all week AND I’ve been looking after the stray cat (nobody looks after me, I notice!). I did manage to drug myself up enough to make it out to dinner on Tuesday – I really didn’t feel like it but a good friend of mine is leaving Nottingham and it was his farewell dinner, so I greatly wanted to make it. The reason he’s leaving Nottingham is because - after 3 years of training - he’s recently qualified as a nurse but (surprise, surprise) cannot get a job here in Nottingham. This is because our pernicious Government has created an NHS where there are now circa 3.5 million managers (each with their own laptop and Blackberry), but only about 7 nurses and 4 doctors to look after the whole country. It’s a scandal and, even though she was eventually sacked (hurrah hurrah!), is all the fault of Patricia Hewitt. But don’t get me started on that.

In the meantime, my friend has had to move to London to find work (where presumably there are a few more posts available in case an MP or top civil servant should fall ill) and so we went out to dinner to celebrate his departure. I chose a dish containing whole killer chillies in the hope that I could blast the fever from my poor wracked body, but I still have it.

Then last night I had to dose myself with drugs again and drag myself out of bed to attend the reading of a short story that I’d written. It was an evening of prose and poetry organized by the Studio and we even hired an actress to do some of the reading. My story was a kind of monologue as if spoken by a woman nearing retirement, so it was better that I didn’t read it (although some people might say that I’m nothing more than an old woman who should be retired anyway). It was a fascinating process actually, to hear my words spoken by someone else. The actress, Jemma Walker (who came all the way from London for the event!) was terrific and chose to put a slightly different spin on the character from the one I had envisaged when I wrote it. I hugely enjoyed the fact that someone else can place another interpretation upon a character that I had invented. Maybe I should write a play next? Anyway, the audience appeared to enjoy it too.

And so, this morning I had to force myself out of bed early because I also have a living to earn. I can’t say it was easy as my head feels like a two-week old melon that’s been fired at by a double-barrelled shotgun, and my throat seems to have been lined with rotating razor blades which are activated each time I swallow or cough. If I don’t get rid of this damned virus soon, I’ll starve to death for lack of earned income. Now then, what do they say about starving a fever? I may have no choice of course, although it may be that you should feed a fever and starve a cold perhaps? I can’t bloody well remember.