My Substack has started behaving weirdly. I can only access certain parts of it using my laptop and other parts of it using my phone. Between them I am able to limp along, but it is not ideal. I suspect I will have to do things like look at caches and cookies and fiddle about with them. My problem is that I know that these are the things I must most likely do, but I don’t know how to do them. Jason is the wizard of all tech, but he has retired to bed with the cold that he thoughtfully gave me yesterday.
This is a partially functioning plague boat, which sums up 2023 quite well, all things considered.
Jason always gets colds that go onto his chest, so he coughs and hacks and wheezes about the place, leaving a trail of tissues and the general air of a TB ward circa 1950. He is also terrible at being poorly. I hate to stereotype, but will leave you to fill in the ominous blanks in this narrative.
Colds always go to my head, so I sound like the iconic Tunes advert of the Eighties. In between bewailing the fact that my head feels like it is full of soggy papier mache, I have to resist the urge to keep asking for a ‘second class return to Dottinghab’.
It is clear that I was born with the constitution of a Victorian aristocrat, lounging on her chaise, wafting a pointless handkerchief whilst inhaling vaporous fumes from the arsenic infused wallpaper. I am in a perpetual state of sub par physical health. The only thing that saves me is the fact that I was also gifted a cast iron will, which has been passed down through the generations from furious woman to furious woman in a long, angry line. Just because this is my lot, it doesn’t mean I have to like or accept it. In fact I am very much of the opinion that it can go and fuck itself in the ear. Whatever ‘it’ may be.
I have drunk 900 glasses of water, 46 cups of tea and an unwise amount of coffee for a woman of my age and anxiety levels. I have eaten all the satsumas in the fruit bowl and dug out some vitamin C tablets I bought on the internet last year and haven’t thrown out yet, despite the fact that they are as long as my forearm and more solid, thus making them virtually impossible to swallow. I cannot cut them up without woodworking tools, they are so dense. You could, should you have the right equipment, hollow them out and use them as clogs. I have managed to choke one down, but had to sit up very straight for half an hour afterwards as it slowly inched its way to a less restrictive part of my digestive system. I felt a bit like a snake that had swallowed a canoe. I’m sure it will do me good in the long term.
I have steamed my face and liberally applied Vicks Vaporub to my person with a passing nod to my grandmother who believed it was the cure for almost anything that ailed you. I have gargled with salt water to combat the mouth ulcers that make up 95% of the interior of my mouth and is the reason I have spent most of the week investing heavily in soup making. I have created a hammock for my hot water bottle so I can creep about the boat, sweating liberally. One of my beliefs is that sweating out a cold is good for you. I have no evidence to support this. I just like to add to the parcel of old wives tales I am passing down to my children. I also believe that taking a bath is exceptionally good for you and that tea tree oil will deal with most things that Vicks Vaporub can’t shift.
As you can imagine, not only am I 97% snot, I am also 100% allure. It is good that Jason is too ill to care about this kind of thing and too poorly to run away.
“One of my beliefs is that sweating out a cold is good for you.” This is true. My top tip? Wear a hat to bed. I’m not even joking. Like a beanie or even a scarf wrapped about the forehead. You will wake up in the morning feeling nasally dry, I promise. 🙌
Have you tried hot lemon, honey and ginger with a teaspoon of cider vinegar? It always works for me and even if it doesn't you'll have yet another old wives tale to hand on to the next generation.