Well 2009 has got to get better than the tail end of 2008, because I've had Man Flu and belive me it was the real thing

December 2008 started good it was my Birthday on the 6th of December and I had a small party on the Friday night and on the Sunday I was out in the Black Horse having Sunday Lunch with all my family and my younger sister jinx me, "Haven't heard you do your dog impressions for a long time" she said....... every time i get a cold it triggers off asma and makes me suffer from chest infections and I bark like a dog. So I get a free flu jab every year.

Anyway I told her I had had my yearly flu jab and that whilst the girlfriend had had a flu virus I had not managed to catch it. And what do you think happens three days later I catch the dreaded man flu and four weeks later I'm still bad.

I go to the doctors and get my prescribed asma pumps to try and keep the cold off my chest and then against advice from the family, who all adviced me to phone in sick, I go to work with a cold and the snivels, at the end of my shift I feel bad enough to go straight to the doctors, who advices I stay in the warm and drink plenty of fluids. I spend the next five days in my house, i never even opened the front door, most of the week was spent in bed sweating the cold out.

Work contacted me asking when was i coming back as it was really busy, so muggings here decides to go back to work and I struggled to do the three shifts, which was a big mistake, the cold temperatures when i was tipping the lorries triggered the illness off to go straight to my chest and I had a crap xmas not venturing outside at all

On boxing night i was back in work and was given a choice

"its up to you can do the back door or you can do freezers or provs.." None of them were warm places to work in and i've been suffering ever since I continued after Boxing night to struggle in work on the Saturday and Sunday and I've been ill ever since doing my dog impressions. if i open the door and the next room is cold it makes me cough and i bark like a dog. I've been back to the doctors and now I'm half way through a course of antibiotics which put a dampner on my new years eve I couldn't drink as I was on anti biotics.

So December was pretty much a shitty month really, I had paid two deposits for xmas parties and I missed both loosing the deposits as the last time I fit enough to go out socialising it was Sunday 7th December and due to the fact I was on medication I couldn't even have a drink on New Years Eve.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, I was sitting watching a DVD when I heard a creaking cracking sound it sounded like the breaking of ice as it thaws on a lake or pond, 10 or 15 seconds later, there was water gushing across the living room carpet. The fish tank had just cracked open and spilt its contents, there was a mad 10 minutes trying to save the fish and all the electrical goods like my lap top power adapter and mobile phone chargers that were plugged in by the side of water filters and pumps of the tank.

So I've spent most of the day today surfing the web on ebay and free cycle looking for a new tank.

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For those that have been reading my weekly columns I had to submit the column a day earlier because of the xmas and new year holidays and because I spent much of this time in bed suffering with my illnesses I never got around to writting anything for the last two weeks. But here's some info for your dairies that I will be writing about next week

Hendy's weekly news column.

Pontarddulais Local Produce Market.