This time next week I will be on the road and my pursuit of sympathy and my unvoiced but vigorous quest for plausible reasons to quit will be in top gear. I am hoping I will be ready but…
Last week I got a cold. My nose liquefied, my throat narrowed to the diameter of a rusty hypodermic, and my skull shrunk or my brain expanded – either way my neural pathways constricted such that the only messages being received were feelings of self-pity and discomfort. However, in this time of illness my pilates training paid dividends – my core is now so strong that when I sneezed my head snapped back like the recoil from a howitzer and a snot ball the size of a small orange was projected across the room at the speed of sound. Impressive in its own bubonic sort of way.
Fern wanted me to put my head in a bag. Not all the time, just when she was around. I’m assuming this was related to my illness rather than my general appearance because she got over the whole “I could have done so much better” thing a long time ago. To be honest for a few nights there I can’t be entirely sure she wasn’t slipping a pillow case over my head when I fell asleep. Her contention was that a sick bloke sweating and coughing his way around Ulster like a well-intentioned zombie was bound to increase donations but if she got ill then the whole support infrastructure of the hike would fall to pieces. It was a fair point actually.
However, I am sure the virus will have run its course and be gone before I head out on 14th. From that date onwards I suspect I will be providing you with reports so laden with complaint that even the most avaricious Schadenfreude appetite will be sated.
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