Thursday, August 21, 2008

Should have had more soup...

I felt a whole ton better yesterday, and had a fairly productive day! After I left the lab I went off to the vet to tell that that I will work this Saturday (I figured that a cold front and flu makes going on fieldwork 2 days earlier a bit silly) and then went down the road to say hi to Jo and to get more soup.

I think the whole of Joburg has this flu - they were out of cough mixture, medlemon AND all the nice soups. Joey was awesome though, she saw me, told me that I looked 'really sick' (i.e. terrible) and made me mint green tea. She also insisted that I stay with her for a few hours so I decided to skip having a nasty soup and have dinner with her.

It was fantastic! I haven't much time with her lately, considering that we used to go for coffee at least once a week, often more than that but I've been so busy buried in the lab that I've neglected her slightly. We both pulled out our laptops and discussed our photos (she is also a professional photographer, although I wonder about her style sometimes), showed her pictures of all the people I work with and places I go to regularly. She was very funny in her reactions to some of the people, I guess I talk about the lab and the people here so often that she had a mental picture of them that didn't quite add up.

A few other people came to visit, and before I knew it I had been there for 3 hours and I was exhausted, so I went home. I woke up at 2am unable to breathe, and I realised that as great as the Thai food was, soup would have been a wiser option! At least I got up early! Coughing works so much better than my alarm clock! And now I'm off to calibrate equipment and try and figure out exactly how it all works...

4 comments:

SuvvyGirl said...

The flu can be nasty. But if you drink more of that mint green tea it will help. I love that stuff, drink it almost every day. It tastes great cold too. I hope you get rid of it completely soon though. :)

SuvvyGirl said...

Having an allergy to honey would suck. I wonder if anything else outthere in nature has any of the same bacteria fighting stuff in it that you might not be allergic to? Cranberry juice is a wonderful natrual antibiotic, and great for the urinary tract too :P

Kath Lockett said...

Hi there - I feel your pain, mate. Love Chunks, Sapphire and I have all been struck down with the flu, cough, chest infection, asthma lurgies over here in South Australia as well.

Shame about the honey allergy - my Dad was a beekeeper as his hobby so I had more than my fair share of the stuff. With this current cold/flu thingy though, we've all been drinking green tea. I think it helps just because it keeps us warm, we sip it slowly and it's soothing.....

Oh and I'm enjoying your blog - have you ever thought about taking some pictures of the wonderful creatures that you have at the lab?

Helen said...

Thanks to both of you! It's a particularly nasty flu that's making the rounds, I don't usually get sick, or if I do I don't complain this much!

I'm a big fan of peppermint tea, but I've enver really got into the whole green tea thing, although I guess now is a good opportunity!

Kath: pictures are a problem, I need clearance to photograph most of the animals here if they're involved in research, and when I go away I ahvea lot of great opportunities but my connection in the middle of nowhere isn't fast enough for uploading. I'll see what I can dig up though!