Just what the doctor ordered

I felt like shit this time yesterday - so bad in fact that I didn't think I'd make it to work today.  I take absenteeism seriously; it's a legacy of a Catholic upbringin.  For me even to consider having a sickie requires my feeling truly terrible.  I was exhausted when I reached home last night, so the game was definitely afoot.

The missus was late-ish home, but we decided to pop out for a pre-show cocktail nonetheless.  After returning home, I threw caution to the wind and spent the rest of the evening eating fine foods and drinking fine wines to my heart's content.  I didn't go to bed until nearly midnight, convinced I'd be phoning in sick this morning.  I woke up after 7 hour's undulating and watery sleep (I was woken by a bluebottle.  In February??) feeling much much better, however.  Hmm...chilli, wine and good telly appear to have steadied the ship.  That's good news...I think

And...collapse

So, the first day back at work after a busy and vee-enjoyable bank-holiday weekend, and don't I know it.  I slept like a corpse last night.  Usually, it takes me at least three hours to drop off, but last night I genuinely don't remember a thing between kicking off the memory-foam slippers en route to the mattress and the alarm clock screaming its tits off at 7.20 this morning.  The bedside lamp was still on when I woke up, implying that I must have fainted rather than fallen asleep in the traditional manner.

Despite all the shut-eye, I was super knackered right from the bully-off.  I managed to get through the rituals of breakfast and dressing myself on instinct and caffeine alone, but quickly ran out of juice.  I even had to have a lie down before leaving the house.  I'm no general practitioner, but that cannot be right, can it?  I really should have 'phoned work and told them to sod off, but that's not the kind of attitude that gets you on the Apollo Program, is it?

I am no stranger to chronic fatigue.  I blame my bio-rhythms, which are all-to-cock when compared with polite society.  When they're preparing for bed, I'm settling down in front of an episode of Kenneth Clark's "Civilisation" with a half a bottle of rioja and a bag of monkey nuts for company.  I've always been like this.

When I was boy, we had a cat called Tibby.  I remember heading-off for school one morning.  There was snow on the ground, and as I mooched forlornly off I spotted the Tibster curled-up in front of the gas fire in the front room, utterly oblivious.  "You jammy get," I remember thinking.  I could have wept.

 In fact cats have a rare old time of matters generally, don't they?  The favourable shift-patterns notwithstanding, they are the masters of their own ships in every conceivable way.  I sometimes look at dogs, and feel sorry for them.  They're like children: they go out when they're told to; they're always accompanied by an adult, and they can't feed themselves.  I often look at my friends' chocolate Labrador and sense her thinking "I could absolutely murder a sausage."  She's got more chance of flapping her ears and taking off, the poor cow.

Your cat, on the other hand, is like an undergraduate: he comes and goes as he pleases, sleeps 14 hours a day and eats when and what he wants.  If a cat wakes up hungry and it's several hours before the Whiskas gets an airing, he simply leaps out window and bags himself a pigeon or a tit.