Gastric flu - not a pleasant experience

I thought I'd got away very lightly with this, having had a bit of stomach trouble a couple of weeks ago. For the best part of a week, my stomach was a bit tender and food was sitting very heavily - I thought perhaps it was the return of an ulcer my doctor had diagnosed a few years back, or (perish the thought) something much worse! Eventually, my little problem subsided and I forgot all about it. About a week ago, my youngest son Daniel went down with a stomach bug, just as we were getting ready for our trip to Spain. TLD then got something very similar whilst we were in Spain and, to cap it all, we arrived home to find older son Alex laid-up with exactly the same thing. Fine, I thought - at least we've all had it now, so it's out of the way. And, of course, my iron constitution meant that I had brushed it off without too much trouble.

Then, at around 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon, my stomach started to feel distinctly, erm, "rumbly". I'll spare you the gory details, which are not fit for a public blog. All I can say is thank heavens for modern sanitation. Very unusually for me, I was in bed by 9 pm - and out of it on numerous occasions through the night, dashing to the bathroom. Dehydration was my biggest worry. I was so thirsty, but was struggling to keep even plain water down. And tea with lemon (my comfort drink of choice, when I'm ill) didn't half taste sour on its way back up! Following one of the longest nights I can remember (you know the sort - you are so tired, but can't stay asleep for more than 10 minutes at a time) I was up at 7 am and contemplating how to get through the rest of the day. Along with the stomach pains, the classic flu symptoms had left me feeling utterly drained and so weak that I could hardly walk up the stairs. By 9 am, I'd had enough, so went back to bed for a few hours and actually managed to get a few hours' sleep. Although I still feel like death warmed-up, at least I'm now managing to keep some fluids down and have even managed to eat a little something. So I guess I'm going to live.

That said, the last thing I feel like doing right now is drinking wine (which of course is what this blog is supposed to be about) but I'm sure I'll be fit as a fiddle in 2 or 3 days and raring to get through the remaining tasting notes for my new wines.