Early one morning (Friday to be more specific)

It's just after 0600 and I'm doing something I have very rarely done in my life: I'm sitting in bed having a cup of green tea with lemon. It is not, you understand, the having of the green tea with lemon which is unusual. That is frequently my beverage upon waking. No. Rather the sitting in bed drinking it. For me bed has only ever been for two things. Sitting up reading and drinking tea was not one of them.

I have just taken this picture of the view. The sun is well up and promises a wonderful, hot day. The last few days have been cold because, although the temperature on the deck window in the shade has clawed its way up to 20deg, the wind has been from the sea and has been very cold indeed. Cold enough for me to wear a sleeved Berghaus fleece on top of my windproof fleece lined body warmer. There have been moments when I wondered whether this was really the weather I'd come for.

I was going to start this posting off by saying that I was sitting here feeling somewhere between death and death warmed up surrounded, as I am, on the floor by at least one box of tissues used and discarded through a night of coughing and spluttering and generally feeling very sorry for myself. But, of course, when it comes down to it I realised that I may have a stinking cold, feel shivery, be coughing fit to bust and just want to curl up and hibernate until it's all over but the reality is that there is nothing wrong with me. If there was I wouldn't be sitting here with the Laptop on my knee writing this.

I am tucked up in a warm bed in a warm cottage in a warm climate in summer with the sun shining and the birds singing. I have food so I am not hungry. I have drink to quench my thirst (and if it's lemonade I have enough to quench the thirst of all my friends too!). I have friends of immeasurable importance to me (even if I have come far away from most of them). I have a body that, once this cold goes, should serve me well for a little while yet. There are many who do not.

I hope one day my Friend and Brother posts one of his typical days on his Blog. Those who read it will stop complaining when they have a cold and not think, as I did when I woke this morning, that they felt like death warmed up.

Well I have indulged myself long enough. At 0900 the Pest Control Company is coming to spray the Cottage and Wendy and Martin's house. This leaves a film on all the surfaces and nooks and crannies which kills all the flies and bugs which attempt to co-habit our dwellings (heaven knows what it does to us). Living in the middle of the countryside in a climate like this certainly means that you have plenty of them. So I have to rid the living spaces of anything that I might come into contact with such as bedding and food which might get sprayed. Then I'm off out for morning coffee. Then I have to be back to let the Sky TV man in to wire up Sky. We thought that a phone line was needed but they are adamant that it is not. We shall see.

No. I can't have felt like death warmed up. There isn't time for that.