While I feel fine in all other respects, I have developed husband’s kidney ejecting cough and spent the better part of the week annoying my co-workers with it. My own father seemed utterly exasperated by the racket, and he was on the other end of a phone a few thousand miles and an ocean away. I’ve grown bored of catering to the cough, so a glass or two of pink prosecco at the wine bar with R&R last night seemed a good idea. Afterwards we lured them to our cottage to watch Celebrity Big Brother eviction night in the recently renovated loft, which has distressingly become known as the man cave. (With its exposed stone gable walls and light pouring in from the roof window, I had once imagined it as a cosy reading and writing room. One gable is now dominated by a fifty-four inch telly and ever since the Blu-Ray player arrived at Christmas, I’ve stopped fighting the inevitable.)
Within half an hour of Davina, a previously healthy R. was hacking away too. Now Drovers Cottage on College Row is known as Consumption Cottage on Consumption Row, and I have acquired the Dickensian moniker of Consumption Lil. I am afraid the labels might stick, providing yet more ammunition for husband in his campaign to return to California.