off day

When my father started stealing Edgar's blankets to cover himself on the sofa, lying back, keeping very still and swallowing more often than usual I thought it safe to assume that he'd caught the vomiting virus with which the house was recently infested; I fished out the bucket and stuck it outside the door just in case. It took a couple of hours and some insistence that it was the combination of wine and chocolate the previous evening, a hard day yesterday, a very early morning due to one of my mum's pals ringing her at half past six and a late breakfast before he finally got around to popping to the bathroom to throw the latter up. Still shivering a bit, he went to bed whilst the rest of us popped out for a walk and a cake (the original plan had been to pop to North Berwick to the seabird centre) whilst he slept. I was convinced we'd get back to find out he'd spent the intervening 3¼ hours being sick 3¼ times but he claimed he'd slept the entire time, hadn't been sick again and hadn't had the squits. The shivering phase makes it look likely that it was the same virus as we'd had but evidently his codgerly and immunologically experienced immune system's experience of all common common colds and popular stomach infections had mitigated the lurgey's effects somewhat. My mother remains chipper and unqueasy but if she's going to catch anything she'd be best catching it sooner rather than later so that she at least completes the emetic phase before spending six hours on a train and bus on Friday afternoon.