Ferdinand Montgomery Kermit

Ferdinand, a frog my mum found in her plant nursery.

I’m in bed, in my pyjamas, blinds down with a roll of toilet paper, Strepsils anaesthetic lozenges and a Vicks inhaler on my nightstand. And I am not moving from here. I have a cold! (No, not swine flu. ) I guess my immune system has finally given in after months of fighting all the colds and flu everyone around me got. I feel generally icky, but the worst thing is the pounding head. There is not way I’m gonna get any research done with this thing.

I suppose the best thing to do today is rest to speed up getting better. Tomorrow is a combined birthday for my grandmother and uncle, which I don’t want to miss, so I might as see today and a blessed opportunity to be thoroughly lazy and nap.

As a sidenote, for anyone interested in the title of this post: I have a habit of calling animals very regal sounding, or old-fashioned, and just typically human names. My cats are Molly and Lola — I could never call them Muffin or Fluffy — and I just like Harry, Harold, Norman, Ferdinand, Mabel, Gertrude and Penelope for animals.