The adventures of Miss Despina

In the last 3 hours, I’ve managed to go from feeling like Death Warmed Up, to feeling like Despina Blocked Up, which is a much better, if not an ideal, state to be in. I have used every possible remedy against this cough / cold * / sore throat / impending explosion of head, and will list them here for other singers and ill people to refer to:

• Ibuprofen
• Paracetamol
• Paracetamol + aspirin and caffiene
• Paracetamol + decongestant and caffiene
• Lemsip (vile, vile substance) with lots of honey
• Ribena with lots of honey
• Chai tea with lots of honey (this got me through a week of singing Yum-Yum in The Mikado, I recommend it for ill sopranos)
• Beer
• Strepsils
• Halls soothers
• Steamy Vicks inhalation sessions
• Steamy showers
• Nasal inhaler
• Benylin chesty cough
• Sudafed chesty cough
• Meltus chesty cough (aniseedy and almost as vile as lemsip)
• Love and cuddles from my Mr Wonderful

I have probably overdosed, and so once this is better, I will be detox-ing from painkillers for a week or two.

Thankfully, my friend has found another soprano for tomorrow - this makes me feel much less stressed. I am sure that by Friday I will be better, and will be able to do Easter Sunday just fine. This morning I couldn’t speak, and my other half phoned up my singing teacher and told her she’d be lucky to get a conversation out of me, let alone an aria. Considering how bavarde I am, she must have known that it was serious. Then a few hours later, my voice made a reappearance (I was in the shower which must have helped). And guess what I found myself singing? On the street where you live. All the songs in the world and I had to waste my brief moments of audibility on that ditty. Grr.

On a more amusing note, last night, Mr W. and I burnt the dinner, because our noses were so blocked up we couldn’t smell the burning casserole! We did our usual routine for when something goes wrong:

Him: I’m sorry baby.
Me:  No no, it was my fault…
Him: No, I should have realised you can’t smell, I’m sorry.
Me:  Honestly, it was me, I’m sorry.
Him: Well I’m sorry too.
Me:  Aww me too… *hug*… I love you… Honey?
Him: Yes baby?
Me:  Shall we just stop apologising?
Him: Ok, good idea. I’m sorry.

(You should have heard us when a runny t-shirt accidentally turned a lot of white and cream clothes green.)

Yours, sneezing but happy

Despina

* Just a note to correct a previous post: Soprano colds are much, much more life-threatening than Mancolds.

***Warning***

***spoilers!***

***anyone reading The Historian or The Da Vinci Code who doesn’t want to know the endings, don’t read this post!***

Last year, I read The Da Vinci Code, and was suitably unimpressed by the complete lack of subtlety, the "deafening silences", the flat characters, and the general page-turning naffness of this opus. (But hey, Dan Brown will never have to write again and I’m still working in a chemist in my free time, so he’s obviously doing something right!) I just don’t see what all the hype was about - sure enough, it’s a bit controversial, but it’s hardly a great piece of literature. The moment when the main guy, Dr Whatever his name is, realises that the woman, whatever her name is, is descended from Jeebus, is a real clincher. You’ll love the oh-so-subtle sexual undercurrent too, although why anyone would be attracted to this guy who has obviously had a personality bypass is far from me. My other half also tells me that DB’s geography of Paris is completely off-beam, and he should know. Read it, promptly forgot about it, and refused to see the film. (Just for the record, I am in love with Audrey Tautou and think that A la folie pas du tout is one of best films ever made. Couldn’t bear to see her in anything less.)

A few months ago I read The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. The suspense was so gripping that one night when I was reading it in bed and my other half made a noise downstairs, I started screaming. No kidding. The plot is amazing, the characters are full of life, and there is such sensitivity in dealing with the gruesome subject of vampires and Vlad Dracula in particular, that I could find myself believing in everything, lost in the world she created with her brilliant prose. Amazingly researched and really mysterious - loved it! The action takes place in France, Istanbul, Amsterdam, Venice, Bulgaria and Oxford, as well as that place of which we do not speak… It’s also about the curiosity of researchers and just how much you can achieve by inquisitive and skilled research. (On a lighter note, loved the idea of vampires going for librarians and archivists, especially since two of my coursemates are now reading this book!)

So I’ve decided that instead of The Da Vinci Code, they should have made a film of The Historian. Let’s face it, how much more exciting would it be to be descended from Dracula than from Jesus?