I’m beginning to think Mother Nature, and I’ll say this quietly, might not have been a mother after all. Or at the very least, when she was considering a mother’s health, she might have been on the amber nectar. I mean, if it were well thought out, a mother would never have a cold at the same time as her children. Never.

This weekend, I found myself in the shaky, shivery stage of my cold. You know, headache, sore nose, coughing. Thing was the children were just ahead of me in the cold phase. I vowed , each time I dragged my weary bones out of the bed that there would be an illness workshop along these lines over the coming weeks;

Morning Session

• How to blow your own nose
• Where to deposit the tissues when you’ve used them (i.e. not everywhere)
• How to be a good patient and avoid some woman someday accusing you of having the Man Flu
• How to avoid spreading your germs everywhere (put your hand up to your mouth when you’re coughing for the love of God)

Afternoon Session

• How to make your sick carer a hot whisky

It’s a bit like bolting the stable when the horse is sneezing his way out the gate. But who’d remember to shut the gate when you have three screaming small boys crying, ’tissue’ ‘nose’ ‘throat’ ‘Woe is me’ (ok, that was me).

And just when you’re starting to come around and you’re just about functioning again, opening your heavy eyes, you see the state the house has been left ‘in your absence’.  I think I might just rest my head on the keyboard for a little sleep. Achoo.