...that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea."
- Heroux Bernard-Paul, from the back of the teabag sachets for Tregothnan's Classic Tea.

So I'm drinking a lot of tea at the moment, strong but milky, in proper English-style. It is amazingly comforting, especially with Tregothnan's, which manages to be strong but not bitter (something I dislike in normal tea).

The week in Bristol was lovely and relaxing, and for a day or two I really thought I was getting better. Then I slipped way back downhill (no apparent reason--I just seem to cycle through up and down periods) and was feeling just as crappy again by the end of the week. We drove back to Leeds on Friday, I felt horrible through the car trip (have I mentioned yet that this is going to be a whiny entry? feel free to bail out now!), and came back to find out that I'm about to be knocked down to statutory sick pay--£68/week. It's totally reasonable, since I've been off work for so long...but disastrous. So I spent the weekend panicking, determined to go back to work today regardless of how I was feeling--but then I got sooooo sick last night that I realized that was really just a pipe dream.

So, stress. And feeling sicker than ever, which is so not helping. It actually feels like that story "The Monkey's Paw", about making a wish that goes horrifically wrong--I remember at the end of January thinking, god, I wish I had more time to write...and now I've gotten it, but in the worst possible way.

I've passed 82,000 words on Congress of Shadows, I'm going to have an interview (of the very cool Mike Carey) and a feature book review in Issue 204 of Interzone...and I just wish the illness would go away. Or that the doctors would at least figure out what's wrong, since it's clearly not tonsilitis anymore...

Bleagh.

I think I need to drink some more tea.

Apologies to everyone who's owed a crit or an email...I will get to them, I promise. But in the meantime, I'm mostly curled up on the couch, with my tea. Oh, and with Sudoku puzzles. I am getting scarily good at those. Surely there must be a useful life skill in there somewhere...