I'm sitting so close I'm almost in the fireplace, wrapped up in my thickest blanket, wearing my warmest clothes. There's a black wool scarf wrapped round my neck like a python. I learned to dress for the weather back home, but when the cold is INSIDE… you can only do so much.

If I sneeze once more, my head will fly off. Time to pull out the big guns, as Grandma Jackson would have said. She had a special recipe to cure this kind of misery. One whiff of it would clear the most stubborn sinus.

I hate being sick.