Saturday 16th October

I was feeling rather frail at around 11 this morning and still in my dressing gown when Delyth rang the doorbell.

“Gosh, you look a bit delicate! Good party, was it?” she chortled.

“No, bad mushroom,” I mumbled.

“Ah.  Not the magic sort, then.”

“Not the edible sort either, it transpired.   Did you want to come in?  Only I’m not sure I’m up to sparkling conversation.”

“Just for a bit.  I wanted to update you on what I’ve found out so far.”

I put the kettle on so that Delyth could have some coffee with a biscuit or three while I drank a dairy-free fruit tea and watched her teeth chomping through the flaky pastry of a mille-feuille.  I shouldn’t be mean, she’s being very sweet and trying to help, but I really wasn’t up to lengthy conversations about foodstuffs of any sort.  Delyth went through some of the regulations that I might be up against and then realised that further talk was pointless.

“Maybe I’ll pop round when you’re feeling a bit better,” she finally said.

“Yeah, good idea,” I nodded.  I closed the front door on her and promptly slumped on the sofa for a nap.  At least by now my naps weren’t being punctuated by an urgent need to run to the bathroom.

I was woken again by the post dropping loudly onto the mat.  The usual array of junk, promoting the local town, the county council and the local MP, plus some handwritten envelopes, you know, the sort that always appear more interesting.  One of these days, the junk mail folks will develop a font that looks as though it’s handwritten, but until then I will actually open a handwritten envelope with a certain amount of anticipation.  

Well, they weren’t exactly interesting but I’m still going to have to do something about them.  They were from some of the advertisers in the local newsletter, replying to the letters I’d sent out about overdue accounts that I’d found in the box of stuff from Deirdre.  Very apologetic letters they were too, complete with cheques to cover a backlog and some upcoming issues.  I’m going to have to try a little harder to track down Deirdre and find out what I need to do with all this stuff.

We were both supposed to be going to the launch party for the amateur dramatic group’s next production – the OH has decided he’ll get involved this time – but I felt so delicate after yesterday’s ill-advised culinary effort that I couldn’t face it.  The OH went by himself, but then he usually has a cast-iron stomach anyway.  What I need is a nice quiet evening maybe eating a soft-boiled egg and watching some rubbish TV that I can fall asleep to.  With any luck, I’ll even keep it down.