I slept well, but I soon discovered my bowels weren’t behaving again. I told Alex as much and we devised that the milk products I’d had in his creamy and egg-yolky salmon pasta had sent me backwards the first time and Juja’s creamy and egg-yolky avocado pasta from the night before had done the same….

Blue skies, tummy no longer rumbling, maybe this was it? Maybe I’m better! I went brave this morning at breakfast and had marmalade on my toast, but still kept it pretty light. I was itching to get outside, feeling better than I had in days. We ended up rushing out the door to get Sabrina…

I had brighter horizons today. Alex and I had planned an afternoon activity to the nearby Classic Remise, a place where fancy and historic cars are stored by the rich and famous. That gave me the morning to rest and the afternoon to play. Sabrina and Alex left the bedroom to me and set up…

Poor Alex had a bad night, with Sabrina and I in perfectly synchronised raspy breathing and an uncomfortable bed, he’d retreated to the living room couch in the early hours of the morning for some reprieve. I woke up to find my virus had returned, thankfully only in the form of diarrhoea, not vomiting, but…

The alarms went off and there were logistical matters to discuss since Sabrina had decided to come with us to Berlin, instead of staying home in Cologne to study. Long story short, it meant we had to go to Cologne on our way to pick up my passport which had been delivered from the US…

While Sabrina and I were feeling better, Alex was hitting rock bottom. After talking to his friends in Dortmund that we were going to visit, we called it off, since his friend was also sick. Better to stay separate and not cross-contaminate. So, we were faced with another day inside. After many hours of Netflix…

All three of us were house-ridden today. I was entertained by Christmas messages from the other side of the world, wishing me a happy and white Christmas, but the closest we were going to get to that was grey. I now understand what a Netflix marathon is, for that’s pretty much how we entertained ourselves…

Feeling better this morning, if still a little tender, I’d slept mostly solid until 10:30am and enjoyed a nice, private shower. Over a breakfast of pastries (as allowed per my doctor’s orders) I learnt that Christmas Eve was the main event in Holland and nothing is closed on either Eve or The Day. After breakfast,…

Good morning. Actually, not good. I’d been up in the night with a sore tummy, cough, dry throat and trouble breathing. It all came to a head in the shower where I threw up and had hot/cold shivers. I was still optimistic as I returned to my bed, I set an alarm for 9:30am so…

I allowed myself a miniature sleep in, hoping I would start feeling better but I wasn’t so lucky. My cold persisted. I did the same deal with breakfast and lunch again and caught a bike back to the Louvre. The audio guide wasn’t included with my museum pass so I explored silently because I didn’t…