Roast beef dinners are the mark of a man

It’s official. I have the flu. Well, my doctor in Ireland (ie my uncle who’s a doctor) says it sounds like I have the flu. That’s enough for me. I feel like I do. Coughing, shivering, shaking, aching, throwing up, sleeplessness followed by hallucinatory dreams, sweats, wobbly legs, dizzy spells when I stand up, nausea when I lie down, and absolutely no desire to smoke cigarettes, drink coffee or alcohol, or to eat chocolate, biscuits or any kind of nice food whatsoever. Despite being presented with all kinds of nice things over the weekend.

Definitely the flu.

The first flu I’ve gotten in years and years and years. The last one I remember was in 1991, although I could be wrong. Normally I get a chest infection due to smoking too many cigarettes and get sick for a few days and take antibiotics and feel fine again.

This is different. This is scary.

Of course, there is no connection between me having this flu and this being the first winter I have gotten a flu jab.

Vaccination works, oh yes sirree bob. I’ll be first in the queue for the avian flu jab when they finally figure it out.

On Thursday night, Himself called to see what the plan was for the weekend. I was in bed, miserable, having just travelled all the way down from Cape Breton in the back of an SUV with the onset of the flu. Although I didn’t know what it was. I desperately wanted Himself to come up for the weekend, but figured he’d be bored and pissed off with me being so ill, so instead of politely explaining the situation to him in order for him to make up his mind about it, I was really rude to him and told him I never wanted to see him again.

In a much ruder way than that.

Next morning I rang work to say I wouldn’t be in, and sounded so much like a castrated bullfrog that the colleague who answered the phone laughed. In a not unsympathetic way, of course. But still, laughed.

I sat up in bed and answered my work email and did a bit of work and didn’t get that ‘11.30am feeling much better’ feeling I usually get when I take a day off work. In fact, I was feeling decidedly ropey. Miserable.

I called Himself, who had sent me a nice text that morning. To which I had responded with a nasty one of course. So I was a bit nervous calling him; the brazen cheek of admitting I needed him and all that…

He said: “I would like to come up and look after you for the weekend. I am going to buy roast beef and potatoes and carrots and peas and cook them for you so you can have a proper Sunday dinner. I want to nurse you back to health because you sound miserable.

I said okay.

Himself said: What do you need from the supermarket? What do you need from the drugstore?”

I said I’d make a list of stuff I needed. Himself said he’d be up in a few hours.

I hung up and wept tears of relief into my pillow.

I know that there are women all over the world who could read this and scoff. Those women have always had male partners who are kind and generous and caring. Those women consider this type of treatment as natural as breathing. Or commitment. Those women wouldn’t countenance anything else.

Many of those women are my friends. Many of the men involved are my friends. I have always been a little jealous when I witness the caring side to the men I am friends with.

But I have always thought that maybe it was something in me that chose men who dealt with me being ill as an irritating, but unavoidable intrusion into their busy schedules; as opposed to welcoming it as an opportunity to take care of me. And always told myself that it had benefits, in that it was the natural outcome of them being happy for me to be hugely independent.

Of course, Himself is happy for me to be hugely independent, and has even accepted that I pay for things some of the time, which is not very Canadian male at all. However, he doesn’t appear to feel that my huge independence should prevent him from taking care of me when I’m a pathetic, shivering, coughing, puking mess.

Despite my best efforts.

Christ on a bicycle giving Mary a crossbar, as my brother would say, I really have had shit taste in men until very recently, haven’t I boys and girls.

I’m sure I’ve insulted a load of people now, but I don’t care.

Anyway Himself arrived up with a slab of roast beef that would feed the extended family on both sides, enough cans of Campbell soup to line the Warhol Room in the Museum of Modern Art, and a bag of Crème Eggs.

And Canadian Lemsip, which is called Citron. Which tastes worse than Lemsip.

And an enormous bag of grapes.

Which sums Himself’s attitude towards caring for me up pretty well – something new he’s thought of that I might like (roast beef dinner that will remind me of home while I’m sick); something sensible that he’s figured out I need (Campbell’s soup), something he knows I really like (Crème Eggs), and something we both like (enormous bag of grapes).
Bless him.

I tossed and turned and moaned and dreamed and coughed all night last night. He claims he slept through most of it, but I know he was awake.

I looked a right state this morning. Finally managed to summon the energy to wash my hair and then put my head down to blast the roots quickly, and sort of fell asleep while I was doing it, so now I look like the wicked witch of the west, with demonic, flyaway, big hair.

But he still thinks I’m gorgeous.

Bless him.

Nova Scotia roast beef is nowhere near as good as Springtown roast beef. But that’s to do with how they feed the cattle over here, I think. But still, it was fine. The rest of the dinner was lovely and it reminded me of home, so then I called the house, and talked to the Queen Mum and Dad and heard all the news about who was dead, and who was sick, and who was seeing who, and who was expecting, and who was winning in the bridge club, and what flowers were up in the garden, and what nefarious constituency wranglings Bertie was up to, and what nefarious bird-murdering wranglings Jabba the Cat was up to, and all that kind of stuff, so that was great.

And he did the washing up while I yacked on.

Bless him.