Well...I turned a corner with the illness this morning. For a few days I genuinely believed I had some kind of flu - high temperature, raw throat, dry cough with no energy to cough, solid sinuses - then at 5:10 this morning something happened. I sat bolt upright in bed and coughed and coughed and coughed. I frightened the life out of myself and Martin. I just couldn't stop, I couldn't breathe, I was shaking and Martin was hanging on to me, I just kept coughing and swallowing. Then I lay back swallowing rapidly for a couple of minutes trying to relax and get some air into me without triggering another coughing fit. My head was pounding hard and my ribs hurt. After a few more minutes I blew my nose, took a couple of ibuprofen, some spray to numb my raw throat and lay back quietly and closed my eyes. Then I woke up at 8:15am and realised I felt...fine. A bit headachey, but generally ok.
Quite what was happening I'm not sure. Perhaps the virus that caused my illness was doing the equivalent of Custer's Last Stand at dawn. Anyway, I think I'm going to be ok for Christmas Day. In fact earlier on I felt so ok that I had an urge to bake some gingerbread.
What follows is a cautionary tale where I ignore the warning signs and plough on regardless.
First of all, I didn't have all the ingredients for gingerbread. I was short of soft brown sugar and golden syrup, but I'm a problem solving kind of person.
I made up some sugar water and essentially caramalised it. That was my first mistake. I left it boiling way too long and instead of lifting it off the heat as it turned golden brown I took it off when it was dark brown. Hmmm....toffee anyone?
I ploughed on regardless. I mixed up some of the 'toffee' with the other wet ingredients, not noticing I used two heaped serving spoons of treacle instead of two level desert spoons. Mistake number 2. Or that I hadn't put the butter in. Mistake number 3.
After a few minutes I could see something wasn't right in the pan. Then I remembered the butter and added it quickly.
Phew I thought. Just got away with that. I hadn't, but I had no sense of smell so the unpleasantness that was unfolding in the pan was being masked. I didn't have any soft brown sugar so I did a half and half mixture of white and muscovado and added that in. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't muscavado - wait for it - black treacle coated sugar?? Mistake number 4. Despite having not much sense of smell, I could sense the air beginning to take on a weird fugg not unlike boiled linseed oil.
I sifted together the dry ingredients. I didn't have any ground cloves so I ground up some whole cloves in a pestle and mortar and threw those in, big lumps and all. Mistake number 5.
Then I threw in an egg which I had forgotten to beat beforehand as instructed (Mistake number 6),mixed it into a dough rolled it out.
I reached for my jar of cooker cutters - and couldn't get the lid off. The seal had formed so well there was a vacuum in place. All the Christmas cutters I had were on the inside and I was left with the only cutter that wouldn't fit into the jar - an alpaca.
Now, do you think that after this many mistakes and the universe trying not to let me have my Christmas cookie cutters I might have twigged and said "ok. I get you. These will be rancid and you're trying to save me the humiliation."
Oh no. I ploughed ahead with the alpacas.
But I had no baking sheet. Too late I realised I had thrown out my baking sheet as it had got too badly scratched. Not to be deterred I used some baking paper on the top of a large foil roasting tin. Mistake number 7.
It was only when I saw something flickering in the oven did I realised I'd drapped the baking paper over the top of a naked flame and the paper was on fire.
I grabbed what I thought was the spray bottle of water I use when I do the ironing, thinking to spray water on the burning paper and perhaps being able to salvage the alpaca gingerbread biscuits. Not the way my luck was going.
I'd grabbed an Ecover multi-surface cleaner and liberally sprayed it all over the flames and yes, over the biscuits. I only realised when I took a deep breath in and inhaled a lungful of hot Ecover fumes. I turned the oven off, retreated to the conservatory and shut the door.
I'm not touching anything more until Martin gets in. I'm just not to be trusted with any domestic task when I'm unwell.
I'm going into the living room shortly to knit and watch a film. Assuming I don't fatally injure myself on the needles I'll see you back here in the New Year.
Merry Christmas everyone. Stay warm and stay safe.