:: bleuuuugggghhhh!!!!

I've been sick -- as in vomiting. It came on yesterday, all of a sudden, while I was at work. I'd felt a bit nauseous on the way to work, but just ignored it. Then suddenly I had to rush for the toilet. After a couple of trips I decided I'd probably better go home -- I was starting to feel shaky and feverish as well, plus I had diarrhoea. I had to sprint upstairs as soon as I got in, blaaargh, urrrrrgh. Once I was completely emptied out, I took myself off to bed with a hottie and slept a bit, then walked the poor dog and went back to bed with a cup of fennel tea. It was a horrible experience, I can't remember the last time I threw up.

This morning (at 8am, Bertie having decided I'd slept quite long enough) I felt a bit better and risked two slices of dry toast and some black coffee. I kept it down but have felt queasy all day. I had some soup and a roll tonight. Detoxing is de rigeur after Christmas/New Year, but this is a harsh way of going about it! I don't know what set it off, but it could be winter vomiting virus, which I had never heard of before this winter. My next door neighbour, Frances, and her entire family had it, all at once, Mum, Dad and the three kids.

Bertie's foot is totally better, and he's had some good times running around testing it to the max. I took him to Braid Hills as a special treat on Saturday, but didn't let him off the lead much. He went zooming around crazily with some other dogs, slipped on ice and fell on his arse in a defrosted cowpat! He loved every minute of it.

Speaking of ice, it's Bertie's latest craze. During the freezing weather recently, I was regularly dumping the birds' iced-up drinking water and replacing it. Every time, Bertie grabbed the big chunk of ice and gnawed bits off it. Mmm, yum! Crunchy!



I'm obsessing over Greece at the moment, I've wanted to go there for years and I'm probably going in June. I had been thinking of going earlier, but everything is shut until May, and the two colleagues I'm working with are taking their holidays in May, so June it is. I have to decide whether to go on a package holiday or just arrive and take a ferry somewhere; and I have to decide where that somewhere might be. I've got loads of brochures and a guidebook, and so far quite fancy Ikaria, Corfu, and Crete, all for different reasons. There are so many islands to choose from though! They all look gorgeous, but I'd prefer somewhere quiet. Or somewhere with interesting ruins to explore (Crete for example). The old backpacker in me wants to go footloose and fancy-free, following the breeze; the 50-year-old in me wants someone to collect her from the airport and deliver her to a nice clean studio apartment next to the beach. Who will win?