Fever Dreams

We’ve been back home for about a week, and will leave again in a few days. I had the wonderful idea to pick up the flu and haven’t been able to do much of anything. I did a COVID self test and it was negative, but the home test was also negative the last time I had a positive PCR test, so who knows what this is. There’s a lot of fever but not a lot of other symptoms, a bit of a cough, nose stuffed up a bit but nothing major. The fever is a bit painful though.

I’ve been reading the Hilary Mantel trilogy, and I’m astounded at how many deaths there are, not just the expected ones of Anne Boleyn and the men accused with her, but all the other deaths from tuberculosis, childbirth and “the sweating sickness”. People dropped off from illness from one minute to the next, and others managed to swerve around it and have tremendously long lives.

The “sweating sickness” is the oddest, sort of the Ebola of Henry VIII’s time. It appeared, killed a bunch of people, then just disappeared. It probably killed people off too quickly to be efficient as a virus, but it came in these odd waves, who knows from where. It has never been studied by modern science because it simply no longer exists.

I’ve been having those dreams, though, that come with a fever. Awful things happen, I’m too tired to wake up from the dream and I wake up drenched. Nights are long and not necessarily restful.

Today was better though. Hopefully this is on its way out.

Our next stop is Milan to visit a friend from my high school. I haven’t seen her in four years, and haven’t had a proper visit for five. Then on to Greece by ferry.

It’s already gloomy here and I’m ready to go find the sun again.

(Foro is practicing his beach position. He’s ready to go, too!)