PUT INTO WORDS

I’m in the second day of a heavy cold, running a temperature after two nights of aching and difficulty breathing keeping me awake.
This time last year I was bedridden, so weak I could hardly lift an arm. At night I sweated the bed wet and in the morning she came over with a few days supply of ginger and carrot soup, took my bedding to the laundry and brought it back a couple of hours later clean and dry.
I was off work for more than five days so walked from mine up Newfoundland Road alongside the motorway to the doctor’s for a sicknote. I was seen immediately, my name called as soon as I arrived at the surgery, but the walk exhausted me.
The end of the festive season brings a return to the routine where I feel more secure. And I’m wondering if being ill at this time of year has any significance, beyond the annual physical symptoms, if it expresses something I haven’t yet managed to put into words.