On The Powers of Suggestion

I am again doing the one-fingered typing, lying on my side leaning on my elbow, in bed, with The Dog at my back.  Day 2 of Being Poorly In Bed, and the novelty is waning.

In the days of The Daughter's childhood, if she were off school with a cold, after a while if she seemed a bit perkier I'd suggest she got up and put her dressing gown on, if not actually get dressed, and come downstairs.  The mere act of becoming vertical can often make one feel so much less ill.  It sets one right in some way, being upright.  Is it that the balance of the four humours resettles itself?  You'd have to ask an alchemist or an apothecary. Certainly the phlegm gets a chance to drain away, phlegm in its modern sense, that is, all the grot that is stuffing up the spaces of the face.  Not phlegm in the ancient sense, one of the aforementioned humours.  That's something else entirely, although (without a trip to Google) I couldn't tell you what exactly, except that it gives rise to a phlegmatic personality. Which is preferable to being choleric or melancholic, in this writer's view, and about as good as sanguine.  But I digress...

Slobbing around in a robe doesn't work the full restorative magic. Getting up and dressed, with proper shoes on, not slippers, is the most efficacious option, as it brings with it the idea that one might even Go Outside.  This is a big step when one has been coddling a molly.  Outside, after all, is where the Well People are, so by crossing the threshold one might become one of their number.  Is being ill perhaps more enjoyable? Does one want to indulge it - and by extension oneself - yet more or does one want to begin to try to shake it off?

Easy does it though, there's no rush.  A nice hot bath first/?  See how that goes, and then consider the option to put on day clothes and potter about the house a bit, or if that prospect overwhelms, pop on some fresh PJs and have another little lie down.

(Addendum.  I got into day clothes, as the temptation of a new dress off eBay which arrived in today's post was too much to ignore.  It's by Sandwich, a designer I discovered  a few weeks ago in the mid-Wales boutique I praised to the skies on here.  It cost me - wait for it - £2.20 with £3 P&P, for a dress which would have been at least £80 or £90 new.  Hooray!!! I am wearing it with a long sleeved T under and my boots, also bought in Wales which have hardly been off my feet since I got them).

New clothes = almost total cure, by the way