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poorly
Originally uploaded by Chaymation.

I felt my temperature rising already on Monday evening. I was about to fall asleep at work, my eyes were drying out and every muscle in my body ached. On Tuesday morning it was obvious. During the night I had gone from shivering to sweating, back to shivering and then sweating again. Well, this happens every year and the signs were in the air. Most of my colleagues had called in sick during the last few weeks and I had been working six days during the previous week instead of the normal four (yes, I can hear the cry all the way from Finland: did he just say four?!) So I called the office on Tuesday morning and told them that it maybe better to drink my tea at home today.

One of the best things in being ill as a child was that especially my grandmother (from my father's side) had all these recommendations of what one should do. The most important thing that I can remember was to drink a lot of Jaffa (orange limonade). I also recall that I was allowed to eat everything nice. A few years ago after a throat surgery I had a grandmother-linked dejavu when the doctor told me that the only thing I could eat during that day was ice cream. Now how cool is that (pun intended)?

So yesterday's programme was set from the start. I started the day watching trailers of new films from iTunes, went through the films of my flatmate (so saw "masterpieces" like In Her Shoes and Sliding Doors) and slept in the middle of the day. Between all this I cycled to the supermarket, put on my "I am ill so I am allowed to buy this stuff" face and bought all these fancy juices and croissants and what have you, came home and chunked them down my throat. Lek-kerr.

Sometimes I wonder whether an adult needs to get ill to do this.

To finalise, a small remark on bakeries: I really see now the difference between this and the previous neighbourhood. At the Zeedijk the bars started filling up as I cycled home. In De Baarsjes, the Balkan bakery, the cornershop or the Turkish restaurant are the places to be.