I have been ill for the past few days. The thing I always forget about being ill is that you can never get anything done. I always think that a few days of solitude would be enough for me to prepare all my plans of world domination. But my mind is foggy and I am awkward and stupid. Never mind the world, I can’t even dominate the TV remote. I pick it up clumsily and have to concentrate very carefully on making it work without banging it about. I must look like some sort of 21st Century Neanderthal, taking advanced digital technology and just managing to use it as a cudgel.

I can’t think properly when I am ill. Or write. Or even read. All I can do is be ill, sleep and occasionally move very carefully around the house – but only when absolutely necessary. I must be feeling a bit better now as I am able to write this. And if the wit and verve of these very sentences aren’t proof of a mind like a steel… thing… I don’t know what is!

Well, okay, I’m still ill but I can think and read again. I managed to do a couple of things today but I know I’m not quite ready to venture out the house yet as they used all the energy I had. Little things. I did the washing up and after a couple of plates found myself thinking, “Right. Come on. Only this frying pan to get through and then I can have a lie down.”

After a bit of a rest, I took the clothes from the washing machine and put them out to dry. And through the relativity of illness, these couple of small tasks seemed to have made for an exceedingly busy day. Hence the photo of the two shirts.

The other photo I was thinking of using was of the shadows of clouds on the wall. I didn’t quite have the photography know-how to record it the way I wanted. What I saw in front of me captured that listless feeling you have when you are poorly. When you can’t think or write or read and all is silent for days. You wake during the afternoon, with a head full of cotton wool, and see shadows curling across the wall. And, in your stupor, that seems quite entertaining.

Unfortunately, my photos just show… a wall. Not very interesting. I just need the right amount of stupor! Enough to appreciate cloud shadows, but not so much it prevents me recording them.

The washing photo seems to have the same weird listless feeling. Or maybe that’s just me. Putting these two shirts up to dry by the window was the last thing I did before I decided to give up and conserve my energy for the rest of the day. Although, I am now writing this. So it seems I am unstoppable. Screw you, illness!

Okay. I’m tired now. I’m stopping