On Wednesday the 18th, I was getting sick. I nevertheless went to work because I didn’t have fever or pain anywhere, I had just the impression not to live my life and to be in a dream constantly. I thought that I was just tired and that I needed to rest. After all, our holidays were rather tiring.
Thursday evening, I went to bed at 8pm! On Friday the 20th I woke up at 11am! 14h of sleep and I had always the impression to be in a dream. Christelle, having come back from her holidays and not having any flat anymore, she came to live with us for two weeks. So, this Friday, Christelle looked at advertisements to rent a flat on our computer. Towards 12pm, I went to speak to her, and I saw my bed. I said to myself that while waiting for lunch, I was going to rest for 5 minutes. Rosa came to wake me up 5 hours later! I said to myself that I wouldn’t be able to go to bed in the evening. I went back to bed at 9pm, to wake up the following day at 10am! Not feeling better (even worse, I started to have pain everywhere as if my body were a giant bruise!) and sleeping always as much, Marc took me to the hospital to see a doctor. She looked at my eyes, my throat, my ears, my temperature, my tension, but she didn’t find anything abnormal. She advised me to rest and if I wasn’t better on Monday, I had to contact my general practitioner which I did, because I wasn’t better. She prescribed me a blood test because she thought I had a viral infection. Donato had the kindness to go with me to the doctor. I had to wait until Wednesday the 24th to know that indeed I had a viral infection, but that she couldn’t say which virus. All I had to do was to sleep and to rest. Fortunately the day before I went to see my acupuncture who relieved my body pains and gave me some homeopathy to boost my immune system. My general practitioner allowed me to call sick leave for two weeks!
And during this time, Rosa and Donato dealt with everything: Rosa looked after the house, the meals and Arthur, Donato did some DIY and walked Arthur every morning.
Arthur made a lot of progress during their stay. He quickly understood that after his breakfast, Donato was going to walk with him; towards the end of their stay he took Donato by the hand and showed him the door straight after he finished his breakfast! Another day, while returning from a walk with Rosa and Donato, it was lunch time, he went straight to the cupboard where his bibs are kept, he took one, went to his high chair and looked at Rosa making some yummy, yummy noise ! The message was clear: “I am hungry!”
The following day, the day before Marc’s birthday in the evening I was awake and as he was inpatient because his dinner was taking too long to come, I started to sing the song of Noah's Ark. For those who don’t know the song, it explains why the unicorns don’t exist any more and while singing it is necessary to make gestures to represent the animals. For the crocodile I clap my hands and for the unicorn I put my index upright on my forehead. I sang this song to him because he likes it and dances always at the same time. That day, when I finished the song, for the first time, he looked at me, said a long un-understandable sentence and at the same time raised his index towards the sky and clapped his hands. I was surprised and as I was still in my “dream”, I asked witnesses if I had understood well what he wanted to say! I had to sing the song 4 more times! It is the first time that he asks to repeat a song. And finally, we celebrated Marc’s birthday. 29 years old has to be celebrated, therefore I decided to make him a chocolate cake, even sick! Now I am going to tell you a small story to show you how much I was not well in my head: Donato and I went buy some goods for the cake and the lasagna that Rosa wanted to make. I had to buy 6 products whose 3 plates of black chocolate and the cashier asked me for £63. I pay saying to myself that Waitrose is really more expensive than the other stores.
While leaving the store, I nevertheless asked to myself how I could pay £63 for one bread loaf, three plates of chocolate, some cheese and tomato sauce. I look at the ticket and there I saw that I paid 63 chocolate plates! I love chocolate, but not that much (and I am sure that there aren’t 63 plates available in the aisle!). So I went back and the cashier gave me back £51 to me!!! He had pressed at the same time on the 3 and the 6! I am not completely sick, but sick enough to pay before checking. In any case, we have a good laugh with Donato.
Nevermind, for his birthday, Marc had (apart from the lasagna and the chocolate cake) a CD (of Sia) and the last Harry Potter (Yeah!), a lot of telephone call, including two which weren’t related to his birthday, so funny!
Few people call us to know if we were flooded, fortunately not. We live at the highest point of Wallingford which is itself on a hill, therefore we didn’t risk anything. But Oxford was badly flooded. Some friends had to be evacuated with their little boy of Arthur’s age and in my company some colleague had their garden flooded! I was quite glad to be in sick leave!
So we didn’t have flood damage, but a road damage: somebody drove into our garden wall. Road hog!
At last, on Friday the 27th before their departure, we went to Cambridge because the following day we had a wedding near by, but also because the airport is not very far. I stayed in a pub and I started to read Harry Potter while they visited! (Marc authorized me to read it before him because I was sick and had all the time to do it!) I read it in 4 days, I loved it and now I went back to read all of them from the beginning. I’m starting the 4th after 3 weeks! I love it! Marc woke up very early to bring them to Stansted airport and then we went to Linton zoo. Arthur made the noise of the Lion practically all the time. He is still a little bit too small for this kind of attraction, but he nevertheless didn’t lose a drop of it!
Then we went to the wedding of our friends Emily and Mark. I was still feeling quite weak, so we didn’t stay too late, but I was really happy to go for them. They looked really happy! Here we go for our first visit. Then for a week we had Sabrina, Marc’s second little sister, but that will be for a forthcoming episode…