Being ill is something I'm super good at - I've been doing it all my life. I once worked out the I'd been ill for a quarter of my birthdays and a fifth of holidays, or was it the other way around; suffice to say, I've been ill a lot. Many of the illnesses were flu or tonsilitis, particularly the winter ones. Some of the birthday ones are memorable because they were one-offs - appendicitis when I was six, chicken pox when I was thirteen, glandular fever when I was twenty, and as I rarely do these things by halves, I ususally managed to be very ill. Holidays - the first one I ever went on at the age of six, I had dreadful stomach pains and was burning up with a high temperature on the way and then spent the first week of the fortnight there in bed, whist the other children were enjoying themselves on the beach. I was twenty-one before I went on my third holiday, and I had tonsilitis in a foreign land, plus the difficulty of explaining via an interpreter that I was allergic to penicillin. I've spent Christmasses utterly miserable in bed whilst the rest of the family enjoyed themselves downstairs. This was particularly difficult when my family were young and my husband was left struggling with the Christmas dinner by himself. I've managed to be ill when I was supposed to be taking exams too - German measles for one of my O Levels and bronchitis during my degree exams. Particular periods of illness were when my eldest child started school, and when I went to university. Now my granddaughter is in education she is sharing everything she has picked up at nursery, and school with me. It could be worse, I suppose.