Evil imp

I firmly believe that there is an evil imp whose sole job in his miserable little existence (it is definitely a 'he', no woman would be so hideously malevolent) is to visit all manner of ills on me the moment my back is turned and my guard down.

Once, when I got a migraine (and I don't get them nearly as often since the menopause), it would start during the day when I was awake. I would get a one-sided headache and often blind spots or dazzling shapes in front of my eyes, and, with luck, would be able to shovel enough painkillers and anti nausea tablets down me that the damned thing wouldn't develop. So, seeing his torture failing, the evil imp devised another tactic, which was to start the headache while I was asleep, so that when I woke it was already fully formed and too late for paracetamol.

And now to colds. Once, I would get a tickle or a sore throat and have at least a day to swallow zinc and vitamin C, or take Gelsemium or Nat. Mur., and stand a chance of killing off the virus before it developed. But the evil imp, seeing me do this once too often for his liking, learned a spell. "Have that!" he said, flicking streptococci from his luminous green fingers. With a dose this strong, the result was the Instant Cold. Out of the blue. Just like that, as Tommy Cooper used to say.

Yesterday I felt fine. I even felt well enough to go to the gym - first time in a month, lazy sod that I am - and then try on lots of clothes (but not buy anything) in Debenhams. I was sitting on the bus coming home, feeling virtuous about not having depleted my bank account, when - SHAZAM!!! I was struck by the Instant Cold. A hideous sore throat arrived out of nowhere, accompanied by a sore gland in my neck and earache. All on one side, the left. Muttering, "Bloody imp!", I hastened to throw all my usual cures down my neck, including a combination of Lysine and high dose Vitamin C which usually does the trick nicely.

Not this time, though. I awoke around 5 am with one-sided cold and migraine both doing nicely. I had to cancel an 11 am meeting with a potential new literary agent (it meant leaving the house at 9.30 when I still wasn't sure if I was going to throw up or not) and go back to bed. It has also meant letting down my friend in Camden whose cats I was meant to be feeding on Saturday night and Sunday morning, as I felt too ill to go into London and pick up her spare key. She says she is going to leave them heaps of food, but it means one of the cats missing two doses of its thyroid pill, which I'm hopeless at getting down its throat, anyway.

Mr Grumpy pointed out acidly that I'm only ever ill when I've made an arrangement to do something, and it's just me getting worked up about it. But I hardly think getting a cold can qualify for this. Bad stomach, maybe. I know that can easily be caused by tension. But I wasn't tense. I was looking forward to today, to meeting the agent and all the other things I had planned.

It's all the evil imp's fault. When I was little, my mum used to tell my sister and I one of a selection of her made-up bedtime serials every night. One of these was about an imp called Naughty Nat who created all manner of mayhem. Perhaps he is still alive in my head!