Shit happens

And oh boy…

It started out at about 11am on Sunday morning, I was fresh out the bath and feeling radiant apart from the occasional loud gurgle from my stomach area and the faintest of stomach cramps every now and then. Thinking it to be nothing more than something “a good fart wouldn’t cure” as my Dad says, I got on with making the sunday roast. Come 5pm, the cramps are starting to get a bit more noticeable, but still my brain isn’t putting two and two together.

I say this in a surprised manner as pretty much a decade ago to the day, I arrived back to Blighty from Thailand with exactly the same symptoms. Then too I thought nothing of it as I trudged through arrivals until I found myself in an ambulance 12 hours later being hoiked off to A and E with campylobacter poisoning picked up from our last night’s semi ironic chinese meal in Phuket. Wife (at the time, fiance) had flown back to Antigua where she was just finishing up living at the time so I spent that night in our freshly bought little flat in Kingston Upon Thames doubled up in agony and leaking from most places before dialling 999. It was quite distressing. Especially as the paramedics thought I was being a complete girl.

And so I fondly recalled that night in Surrey as I performed much the same routine (minus the 999 bit)  in my freshly bought house in Somerset. This time though Wife was upstairs with our wee 4 month old daughter so I refrained from going upstairs and waking the whole house up. Parenthood does this to you, you’ll happily lie there quietly with one arm hanging off if it means the kids will lie in till 7.

It was still quite distressing downstairs however. I even started coughing up blood at one point, but that was more to do with the heroic retching I’ve now discovered I’m capable of.

On the plus side, I now have a 6 pack that Brad Pitt would be envious of.

Anyway, I tell you this as as some of you will remember, we were due to rehearse yesterday. I emailed the chaps at about 4am to tell them that I wouldn’t be able to make it. I did briefly think about it, but Swindon’s 90 minutes from here and I barely had 90 seconds to get to the bog on one memorable and eye watering occasion. Therefore I surmised I’d make a right mess of the Beemer if I risked it so it was with a heavy heart, a bloody mouth and a watery bottom that I bailed out on the day.

The boys were heartbroken. So much so that they carried on without me which, in hindsight, was the right and cockhard thing to do. They’ve since reported back all glowing with confidence about it and that pleases me no end. It means we’re onto something good.

The good news is I’m now feeling almost completely better. A night or two’s good kip won’t hurt so come the weekend we can really get stuck in to phase 2 of rehearsal.

the bad news, I have to admit, is that I’m already missing the 4am re-runs of The New Yankee Workshop on Discovery Hammer and Tongs or whatever it’s called. And that bloke with the popshield haircut who does watercolours. And that beardy bloke who goes fishing and calls everything he catches “a clonker”. Then vomiting for a couple of hours before watching the sun rise and then going to sleep until 7 o clock in the evening.

It rather reminds me of my student days…

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