Strange moaning

When I have a bad throat – a really bad, sore throat that is accompanied by a cough – I groan while sleeping. It stops me from coughing. Somehow, and luckily, S sleeps through it.

I was in bed last night, still in the throes of this annoying throat/chest virus thing, when I heard S get up. I figured it must have been because I was doing my strange moaning. I felt ill, though. My stomach was aching and I was very nauseas but couldn't bring myself to move from bed. I did that thing where you breathe deeply and slowly, and swallow down saliva, and repeat... I must have gone on like that for hours.

Ah, I should have mentioned that there is a dead mouse (or possibly two of the blighters) beneath the floorboards in our bedroom. The stench is vile. We aim to get pest control out as soon as we can. No mice have been seen anywhere, so I must assume that they have been living downstairs primarily, in GFG's place, and then head up to the ceiling to breathe their last.

Anyway, S eventually headed back to the bedroom, took a step inside and then retched when he smelled the decaying mice/mouse (I had managed to stay in the room thanks to the effects of my heavy cold; S's mum was staying in our other bedroom so we weren't able to decamp there).

S was very poorly. It turned out we had food poisoning, with S succumbing to the worst of it. He looks so little when he is ill, like a young boy. As it turned out, he hadn't left the bedroom because of my strange moaning but due to the washing machine that was his stomach. He hasn't been well since. We went out briefly today to get some air (the kitchen now also smells of ex-mouse – great!), but mostly sat in cafés like a pair of squeezed lemons.

What a combination – me with my ongoing Christmas cold, S poisoned by sausages... Just spoke to my friend, V, who is sneezing and spluttering.

'Tis the season to be unwell, it seems...