Floating down to Camelot

My boss has just sent me home. I'm hot/cold shivery-shaky, and have a sore throat. To be honest, I expect I could have soldiered on and got through the day okay, but today was one of those rare things - a day in which my diary was blank. Tomorrow isn't, so it's better to play it safe and stay home today, then soldier through tomorrow, than to stay at work and risk being much worse tomorrow.

So I'm now off to curl up and watch something brainless and comforting on DVD.

Ooh, I wonder if the large Play.com order that I drunkenly placed on Saturday night will turn up this morning, then I can watch and/or listen to that. (Though I sometimes think there should be an alcohol detector on all computers, which automatically disables email, blogs, forums and all shopping sites - or, at the very least, flashes up a "are you really sure you want to do this? I mean, really?" warning message.)

Oh, and you know what this means, Pellinor. The cupboards are bare for another day. You will have to eat with the kitties tonight.

Oh dear... I've resisted for so long. I never even visited the site, not even just once, not even just to look, until last week.

But last night I bought a DVD from ebay.

Given the problems I have with resisting the temptations of Amazon marketplace sellers, I think this was probably a very bad move.

Got a cold. An annoying cold. Rather than developing full-blown cold symptoms, of the type that at least earn some sympathy from others, it's decided to leave me outwardly cold-free, but totally devoid of any energy at all. My legs have turned to jelly, and even my neck just wants to give up on the idea of supporting my head.

I wanted to write this weekend, but instead have spent both days sprawled on the couch, surrounded by piles of old books, like Little House on the Prairie Books, Winnie the Pooh, and various trashy fantasy novels involving implausibly pretty heroes. I also watched the latest Pride and Prejudice film, which I thought was pretty good, but saying any more than that would require brains and energy, and my fingers feel too tired to type, and my brain is mush.

It's World Book Day on Thursday, which means that lots of schools are having their Book Week this week, so I'm storytelling every day. Storytelling isn't fun with a sore throat or when someone's cast "energy drain" on me, especially since I like doing very loud and energetic stories that involve much roaring and leaping around. I also have a lot of other stuff that needs to be done this week, in between storytelling, so having a day off is out of the question.

It's not fair. On Friday, I thought my neck was well on the way to getting better, but when I woke up yesterday, it was as bad as it had ever been.

We got a dance mat yesterday, but I can't move enough to use it. Got Jade Empire, but holding the Xbox controller hurts. Sitting and watching DVDs hurts - and, besides, all I want to watch is disc 3 of RahXephon, and I've not got it yet. I want to see Brokeback Mountain, but it's not come to our local cinema. I want to write, but typing hurts my neck. I want to read, but the book I've got on the go isn't really engaging me. I want to role-play, but D&D is cancelled tonight.

Isn't fair! *grumble grumble grumble*

D&D is chez us for a few weeks. Last week, we needed figures for a complicated battle, so out came the Lego. I found it very amusing, the fact that everyone promptly went "ooh!" with excitement and plunged into the vat of Lego men, ripping heads off bodies and creating mix-and-match representations of their characters. All gaming ceased for about an hour. And yesterday we could hardly move for the Lego that was all over the floor, ready for people to make mules, horses, fortresses, Dark Citadels, burning volcanoes etc., as and when we encountered them.

EDIT: ( Picture, I hope )

It's especially fun because when you slaughter your foe, you can physically tear him into pieces and scatter him across the coffee table. There are even some small red circles that can be scattered around to represent drops of blood, and a chain so we can bind up prisoners for our evil cleric to torture. ("Pain is good!")

Unfortunately, my character is a little bit disassembled right now. I was on watch at night, wearing only my (k)night clothes, when a grey ooze glooped itself all over my legs and killed me. I got better. Unfortunately, my clothes from the waist down were all burnt away, and we were promptly transported mysteriously to another dimension, before I could get any new clothes. So I'm now limping around totally naked from the waist down - and totally red and blistered and agonised from the waist down - which is slightly embarrassing for a heroic and manly paladin.

And, on a totally related note, I've got a cold. It's not fair! I always get a cold just in time for my birthday. I thought I was imagining this, until my mum phoned yesterday and said "it's your birthday this week, so have you started your traditional cold yet?" Grr! On the bright side, though, Pellinor and I both have Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off, to use up leave that needs to be taken before the end of the year, so it's only a two day week.