Cuddly bear with a sore head

That’s me. Literally as well as figuratively. I have Covid. And I feel sorry for myself.

I fell ill while on holiday. I probably picked up the virus at Heathrow or on the plane. Filthy places. After a couple of days yomping in the Alps, I took the train to Munich to visit my Best Female Friend, who's British but lives in Germany and is still as mad as hell at me for voting Brexit. Hubby stayed in the resort, partly because he wanted to carry on langlaufing, and partly because he was still as mad as hell at me for creating a scene going through security at Heathrow (see previous blog here).

BFF and I mooched around the Lenbachhaus and the Blue Rider collection. I’ve always liked Kandinsky, which is probably why I never tire of Double Jeopardy starring Tommy Lee Jones (who plays Tommy Lee Jones) and Ashley Judd playing a ballsy woman. She gets the better of her husband, played by Bruce Greenwood, who had framed her for his murder (which obviously had never happened, but she does murder him in the end. Whoops – spoiler alert). She wouldn’t have tracked him down had it not been for Kandinsky.

And Julia Roberts would never have married Hugh Grant (who plays Hugh Grant) in Notting Hill had it not been for Kandinsky. A very useful chap.

After Blue Rider, we bitched our way through some ‘conceptual art’ and ended up watching a short film. There was an obese naked woman and an obese naked man in the middle of a lunar landscape. They donned nothing but minimal white bondage and, for want of a better description, each had a unicorn horn strapped to their head. They wandered zombie-like around the rocks, getting ever closer, ever more uncomfortably. 

BFF whispered to me, “If this gets any worse it’s going to be a bit pornOH! OH! GO!”

We fled down the stairs to the café for some nerve-settling Kaffe und Kuchen. I have to say I was very pleased at how much German I could remember. The correct adjective endings eluded me, but my infinitive clauses were to die for.

We had a little bit of time to spare before my train back at about 4:30pm, so we headed up to Marienplatz, the city’s main square since 1158 and a must-see every time one visits Munich. We got to the Bahnhof at about 4.12pm and I checked the departure board: the train to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where I had a tight connection for the Innsbruck train, was due to depart at - er - 4.13pm on platform 34. We were at platform 8!

“GO!” yelled BFF, not for the first time that day. 

I legged it, arriving at a very quiet platform 34 at 4.13.21. Bloody Germanic punctuality. I came over all peculiar. Bit nauseous, light-headed, ringing in my ears. I just stood there, breathing very very hard. That’s what porn does for you before cake … does Boris know?

Thankfully, a very calm, collected BFF arrived, to explain that the train I had intended to catch was due to depart at 4.32 from platform 25. I hadn’t missed it at all. She walked with me to the correct platform, where we had a last few minutes’ gossip, a lovely hug and I got on the train – on the right carriage unlike last time. I’ll tell you about that in another blog. Arrived and departed Garmish-P without incident and fully recovered from my little turn, so I thought. Arrived at the resort on time. Got back to the hotel. Straight into dinner. Then straight to the piano bar. Then straight to bed.

Two hours later, I woke up with my head feeling like it was about to explode. I’ve never had sinus pain like it. Paracetamol was useless. The only way to tolerate it was to sit upright with a cold wet flannel over my face. I had Covid last April that was all about a horrendously sore throat, not the sinuses, and I’d recently had a booster shot so this latest had to be a bad cold.

The next day I hardly had any breakfast but thought a walk in the fresh air might help. It did a little bit at first. I managed to get to one of my favourite cafés half way up a mountain (talk about kill or cure) where I had some heiß Schokolade (bugger those adjective endings). Back at the hotel, I decided I’d overdone it, forced down a small helping of Käsespätzle for lunch and spent the afternoon in the hotel room, dealing with the fallout from one of my facetious LinkedIn posts that had made someone as mad as hell at me.

The warm steam in the shower helped sufficiently for me to teeter down to dinner. The head waiter welcomed us and took our food order.

“Would madame like some wine with her dinner?” he asked.

“No thank you,” I snuffled.

“Are you sure?” he bellowed. “Are you somewhat under the weather?” he asked more calmly, studying my red puffy eyes and red puffy nose.

“A little,” I said, “but it’s not Covid.”

The next day at breakfast, I sneezed into my hankie.

“Gesundheit,” said the chap on the next table.

“Danke,” I smiled weakly. “Nicht Covid.”

The morning after we got home, my good friend and neighbour whom I shall call H to protect her identity, emailed me in a panic. Her smoke alarm was beeping, the dog was going ballistic and she couldn’t get the cover off to change the battery, and she didn’t have a spare battery anyway. I popped round with a screwdriver, a battery and a hammer (see previous blog) and eventually prised the cover off, changed the battery and calmed the dog down. I stayed for coffee (too early for wine) and told her about the holiday.

She said I sounded like I had a cold: “Yes I have," I admitted, "but I’m getting better and it’s not Covid.”

I also reassured her I’d be well enough to give her a lift in a few days as previously planned, and that the bigger problem was that my MOT had expired unexpectedly but I should be able to get to a garage beforehand.

The morning after that, I woke up feeling rubbish again. So I took a test which was, as we now know, positive. Bestimmt ist es Covid! Hubby was mad as hell at me because he would now have to cancel some meetings to take my car in for its MOT and also give H a lift. I phoned H to tell her, and she was as mad as hell at me for not testing before I popped round to fix the smoke alarm. The fact that Hubby could give her a lift, assuming neither of them fell ill, didn’t placate her because she doesn’t like his driving. Then I emailed BFF to warn her I would have been infectious when we hugged, and she was as mad as hell at me again, probably not helped by me voting Brexit.

Sod this. I’m going to post something horrendously rude and provocative on LinkedIn because there can’t be many people left who aren’t as mad as hell at me already.

Gird your loins!