Giving In

My resolve has melted and I've started taking the antibiotics. I've no idea if they'll work or not, but I figured that the gorgeous doctor who said he wouldn't touch them himself is young, fit, strong and healthy, and so his immune system would kill any germs that tried to infiltrate his body. I, on the other hand, seem to have knocked myself a bit flat by all the activities of the last year and more, and my body isn't fighting back as well as I hoped it would. Another day waking to a pounding headache, tight chest and exhaustion is enough, and by 11am I was weakening. Daughter said no, sister and friends said yes. Majority rule.

I had to race out of the house not long after taking my first evil tablet. The carpet shop rang and asked if they could come in a few hours and lay the last piece of carpet, the one in the hall. I had postponed this job because I had decided to reopen a doorway from the kitchen into the hall. This had been sealed off completely by a previous owner, but the light switch was still in position, and assiduous tapping showed that though the space had been plastered over the doorway was still there, a perfect rectangle. Bashing it out and creating a new door was going to be a messy business, so it made sense to hold on the carpet. The door is there now giving access to the hall and stairs without having to go all around the house and through the sitting room, and everything is painted - except the new threshhold. I had to varnish it, and quickly.

I can get to Fram and back in 13 minutes when I'm in a hurry, and I was, but something made me take a route I'd never used before. The sun was shining after a dull, flat morning, and the lane marked Byroad beckoned as it never had before. I didn't hesitate, but swung the car to the right past the vineyard. I didn't know where it would come out, and there was no time to look at my OS map. Oh, it was the right decision. There are lanes in Suffolk where the loveliness is almost too much to bear, superlatives wither into dust, and you can only gaze, soak it all up, and feel yourself renewed. And then, as if enough wasn't enough, suddenly there was the mere with its grazing cattle, and a clear view of the castle rising high above me, its romantic castellations and towers like something from a fairy tale, while opposite reared the Gothic turrets of the college. I'd never seen them like this before, and I felt dizzy with enchantment. If I recover quickly now how will I ever know if it was the antibiotics or the byroad? 

Framlingham College

Framlingham Castle

I bought the varnish in a blur, almost forgetting why I was there, and dashed home the normal way. It took another few minutes to find a suitable paintbrush and get the first coat done. By the time the men came I was ready for them, heart steady again.