On Saturday night my aunt Lucinda was celebrating her 50th birthday in Langley, a little village near Macclesfield, on the edge of the Peak District. It wasn't going to be possible to get to and from the party without a car, and it was also difficult to find anywhere to stay very nearby. So I decided to rent a car, and then to make a virtue out of the necessity and find interesting, non-motorway, routes there and back.
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Despite an easy evening, I woke up shattered, stuffed-up and sore-eyed. It only took about an hour of wrestling guilt to decide to call in sick. I am really trying to work on my less helpful macho reactions to bodily weakness, especially after the mess I made last week of what should have been a minor 1-afternoon migraine.