h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Woe is me.

I'm off work all week with a very sore throat. The doctor diagnosed "Seitenstrangangina" which, my dictionary assures me, is pharyngitis. Monday and yesterday, swallowing was so painful that I made myself sleep as much as possible, having learned here on hootoo that you don't swallow in your sleep. F19585?thread=5979178 . (Well, I probably knew that instinctively anyway, but the question seemed justified at the time.)

With the help of penicillin it seems to be getting less painful, and as from today I hope to make use of the time at home to do some jobs that aren't too physically strenuous. Maybe I can start by finally setting up the laptop my son bequeathed me with last birthday. Install programmes, set up the wireless LAN, connect it to the printer etc.

Then I've got some sewing to do - curtains for the living room. Sewing them should be quite restful, although I won't hang them as I might get dizzy up on the ladders.

Right now, though, I'll have to do a bit of physical work and tidy up the kitchen and bathroom.

We have just been allocated our bit of wood and ought to be out in the forest flailing chainsaws and treetrunks every free minute of daylight we can get, but as my husband started this whole thing off by having a dreadful bout of flu last weekend, we have both been moping around watching the beautiful dry sunny days slip past.

This afternoon Son no 3 is expected so that a start can be made. This evening I'll have to cook a meal suitable for lumberjacks.

Hmm. I've just read that conversation I linked to and it seems that Teuchter and 2legs (whose knowledge on the subject I know I can trust) both say that you do swallow in your sleep. Although 2legs theorised that there are two kinds of swallowing - conscious and unconscious.

So, even if I did swallow in my sleep the past couple of days, I was either anaesthetised by sleep and didn't feel it, or the unconscious swallowing takes place further down the throat, as 2legs says, and didn't affect the inflamed area of my gullet. Whatever. Sorry to go on - I haven't posted for 3 days and must have bottled a lot up!

Sympathies and get well soon. Lumberjacks live on bread and cheese and lots of beer, isn't that right?

Have a and some soothing hot drinks to help your poor throat. Hope it gets better very soon.

Hope you get well soon, this pharyn...whatsoever is something real dreadful...

poor thing

Would pizzas and beer be acceptable to the lumberjacks?

I hope the antibiotics kick in soon. Don't overdo the cleaning and cooking.

I'm back in circulation now. The penicillin helped, of course, but I still didn't leave the house till Friday, when I finally had to go out and do some shopping.

I was out in the woods on Saturday (yesterday). No 1 son came for a short while to help for one round of sawing, chopping and stacking, and No 3 son was going to come but he only just managed the very last round, when we'd finished the noisy work but still had some chopped wood to collect. So he went out to the woods with his Dad (who was going for the fourth time - I went with him for the first three) and filled the trailer. He made up for it a bit by chopping wood in the garden till it got dark.

His excuse for being late? The chap who was giving him a lift home had his car towed away.

No 2 son is going to surprise his Dad, whose birthday it is on Saturday, by coming home on Thursday and rallying the whole family round for a rousing session of lumberjacking in the woods on Saturday. Then we can all go out for a jolly good meal.

I'm back to work tomorrow.

Thank you all for your good wishes.

And lumberjack food was, at hubbie's request, this week, "Cordon bleu" which is a German dish made by slitting open a pork "Schnitzel" and putting a slice of ham and a slice of cheese inside, breadcrumbing and frying it.

No 3 son did that - conscience still biting him, perhaps. He made a good job of it and I'm still full up from last night's dinner even though it's late Sunday afternoon.